Classic Baked Cheesecake with Blueberry Sauce

Hold back your salivas ladies and gentlemen! Here comes a drool-worthy cheesecake drizzled over with some amazing blueberry sauce. I actually cannot believe that I haven't made a post on this yet.

This is the cake that changed my life.
The one that made me believe that I can actually bake as I previously had little faith in myself.
The one that made me fall in love with baking.
The one that is so simple to bake.
The one that is revered deeply in my heart.
And the one that has become my 'signature' cake that friends and family remember me for.
 
Recently, our household accommodated a lovely couple from overseas. The uncle and aunty were such a cute pair together. Since it was auntie's first time in Australia, I thought why not welcome her with my 'signature' cheesecake...and oh gosh, she loved it. Love to the point that she proactively seeked for the recipe and got me to explain in detail of how to bake it. For the first time, I had to translate a recipe in chinese for someone... and that part was a little bit daunting for me since my vocabulary is quite limited.

The blueberry sauce definitely deserves a mention as well. It's so good that it's not just an accessory to the cheesecake but a wedded partner. It's got the naturally berry sweetness with a bit of tangy flavour from the lemons. Beautiful combination. Now I'm craving pancakes just as an excuse to have more of that blueberry sauce.

Classic Baked Cheesecake with Blueberry Sauce

(cheesecake recipe adapted from Arnotts)

Biscuit base
250g plain biscuits, finely crushed (Marie, Nice, Arrowroot etc)
125g unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

Cheesecake
500g cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence (I used Vanillin)
3 eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C/130°C fan-forced. Lightly grease a 20cm springform tin or line the cake tin with baking paper (if you don't have a springform tin).

2. In a bowl, combine crushed biscuits, cinnamon and melted butter. Press firmly onto base and 3/4 of the way up the sides of the cake tin. Refridgerate for 30mins or until the cheesecake batter is ready.

3. Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth.

4. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition until combined. Pour into biscuit base. Bake for 50 minutes.

5. Once baked, turn off the oven. Leave cheesecake in the oven with the door ajar for 1 hour.

6. Chill in the refrigerator for 4 hours or overnight.

Homemade Blueberry Sauce

(recipe adapted from My Baking Addiction)

2 cups (250g) fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp cornstarch, mixed with 2 tbsp cold water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I used Vanillin)
Zest of 1 lemon (approx. 1 tbsp)

1. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine blueberries, 1/2 cup water, sugar and lemon juice. Stir frequently and bring to low boil.

2. In a small bowl, mix cornstarch with cold water. Slowly stir the cornstarch into the blueberries, taking care not to crush the blueberries. Stir until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon, about 5 minutes.

3. Remove from heat and gently stir in the vanilla and zest. If the sauce is too thick for you, slowly add in water until you've reached desired consistency.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Macarons

Macarons are a work of art in baking. Petit, delicate and simply sweet. Such a popular sweet that many people go crazy for, all thanks to a certain tv show. Even the two little twirps sisters at home can have FIVE  or more at one go. I do not have that crazy ability unfortunately...level down as a cake monster here, or should I say, sweets monster. As you can tell, the batch never lasts long in my household. There aren't many ingredients required to make this but mixing the macaronage to the right texture is such a fickle thing to do. Macarons have always been the bane of my existence due to many of my past failures. It really hurts each time a batch of macarons fail because of the costly almond meal and the amount of egg whites gone to waste. Previously, I never understood why macarons are so expensive but now I understand and appreciate the level of difficulty of getting everything just right to obtain the final product. It got to the point where I almost lost faith in myself with the potential to be able to produce pretty little macarons.

I've tried both the french and italian methods only to see them: flat as pancakes, cracked on top, do not 'feet'. There are numerous recipes and tips over the world wide web that you can read on, even video tutorials are available. I wished I did all of them earlier on to compensate for my numerous  mistakes. It all seems easy but then when it comes to baking it , it's a whole different story. But once you get it, you'll be jumping happily around like me and it'll appear to be more effortless, the more you bake them. A very good start to the new year for mastering picture-perfect macarons, 'Go me!'. I personally prefer the french method as I don't own a stand mixer and therefore I don't need to cope with having another person around helping to pour the sugar syrup in whilst beating the egg whites. French method is less complicated as well, which I like.

I've decided to bake a batch for Auntie L, who had selflessly helped me out a lot during the past 6 months. These little babies were happily boxed and wrapped up for her. Too bad, she didn't get them first hand when they were delivered to her house. Hope she's satisfied with what I put together for her.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Macarons

(recipe and tips adapted from Brave Tart)

Macarons
115g almond meal
230g icing sugar
144g egg whites, room temperature (You can zap fresh egg whites from the fridge in the microwave on defrost for 10 seconds)
72g caster sugar
½ tsp kosher salt (I didn't add this in)

1. Sift the almond meal and icing sugar together in a medium bowl and set them aside.

2. Using an electric mixer in a medium bowl, beat the egg whites together with the caster sugar and salt at medium speed for 3 minutes (4 on a Kitchenaid). They won't seem especially foamy at this point.

3. Increase the speed to medium-high (7 on a Kitchenaid) and whip for another 3 minutes, then increase to highest speed (8 on a Kitchenaid) and beat for another 3 minutes.

4. Turn off the mixer. Add in any colouring/flavour/extracts and whip for another 1 minute at highest speed. At the end of this minute, you should have a very stiff, dry meringue. When you remove the whisk attachment, there will be a clump of meringue in the centre, just knock the whisk against the bowl to free it. If the meringue has not become stiff enough to clump inside the whisk, continue beating for another minute, or until it does so.

5. Dump in the sifted dry ingredients all at once and fold them with a rubber spatula. Use both a folding motion (to incorporate dry ingredients) and a rubbing/smearing motion to deflate the meringue against the side of the bowl. Take care not to overmix, the mixture should flow like lava and a streak of mixture spread over the surface of the rest of the mixture should disappear after 30 seconds to a minute. Approximately around 30 strokes/folds of the batter will be just enough.

6. Place in a piping bag and pipe rounds of about 3cm diameter on lined baking sheets or silicon baking mats. Hold onto the baking sheet and tap them hard against your bench top to remove any extra bubbles from your piped shells. Preheat the oven to 150° C/130°C fan-forced. Leave shells on bench to dry for about 30 minutes to an hour, or until a shell forms around the piped macaron (I generally leave them for 20 minutes).

7. Bake for about 18 minutes, or until you can clearly peel the parchment paper away from a macaron. Cool thoroughly on the pans before peeling the cooled macarons from the parchment. Use a spatula or plastic scrape if necessary.

8. Pipe the cream cheese filling (recipe below) on a macaron shell, then sandwich it with another macaron shell. Refrigerate overnight. Can be stored in the fridge in an airtight container for several days.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Filling
(recipe adapted from ai love baking)

113g cream cheese, softened
25g icing sugar
25g blueberry jam or puree
50g unsalted butter, softened

1. Beat the cream cheese, butter and icing sugar until smooth.

2. Add blueberry jam or puree and mix until incorporated.  Chill to set.

Chocolate Marquise with blueberry compote

Sorry for my lack of blogging lately. A friend/colleague of mine had passed away over the last weekend and most of us who were associated with him were sad, shocked and traumatised by the sudden news. He, who is at the prime of his age where he's dedicated and starting to build up his own career had all of a sudden just left us. For many of us, it took quite a while to process this reality through our heads. It comes back to tell us that life is unpredictable and you don't know what is going to happen in the next minute of your life. This brings me back to what I have said to a group of people once about my perspective on life and the future when I had first experienced torment and grief as a life-changing matter. I said "Do the most as you can whilst you're still alive. Do it now and don't wait because it could be too late for regrets".

With regards to what I've said, it doesn't necessarily mean travelling around the world, spending all your money on luxuries or doing crazy things that doesn't seem reasonable to many people in this world. What I refer to more importantly is spending time with the people that you love. You never know that your last random chat with someone will actually be your ever last conversation. You never know the goodbye you said to someone before you leave each time would actually be the last farewell. Everyone will be occupied with many things in life which makes them busy but I never see that it's impossible to bring out some spare time to see or contact your beloved family and friends, even if it was just for a few minutes. It will happen if you make it happen.

Despite all this, I've got a wedding of a friend coming in a week. There's a big swing in events but it's something I'm happy about and do look forward to in a positive manner. We've grown up with each other and there is so much in common between our families. There are three daughters per family and we're both the eldest. So lately, I've also been trying to put my sugar fixes on hold to have a reasonably okay figure to fit into my dresses. But it seems like this plan has failed miserably as I'm anticipating to get my hands on some chocolate marquise.

Classy, rich, luxurious, sumptuous, duluxe, indulgent are all the words that come to my mind with regards to the name of this dessert. Without a doubt, this chocolate marquise lives up to these words that I've used to describe. It's so rich and dense in texture that one slice served like a chocolate pate is enough to devour your tastebuds in.

This dessert doesn't seem much of a difference to my last post since a chocolate marquise is somewhat similar to a chocolate mousse, but I just couldn't resist. I wouldn't go without a berry compote in combination with this dessert or even at least the addition of fresh of frozen berries will be very welcoming.

Chocolate Marquise with blueberry compote

(Marquise adapted from Drop Dead Gorgeous Daily and compote from raspberri cupcakes)

Chocolate Marquise
250g good quality dark chocolate, finely chopped
175g unsalted butter, softened
75g caster sugar
30g high quality cocoa powder
4 large egg yolks
55 ml water
225 g crème fraiche or whipped cream (I used thickened cream)

Blueberry compote
300g blueberries, fresh or frozen (I used fresh)
¼ cup (55g) sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract (I used vanillin)
Note: You may want to decrease the amount you make for the compote to half or less because the original recipe provides too much for this dessert.

1. In a heatproof bowl, gently melt the chocolate over a saucepan of simmering water. Set aside to cool slightly.

2. Using an electric mixer, beat 130g of butter till slightly fluffy, then mix in half the sugar and cocoa powder until light and fluffy (The mixture should appear to be more pale).

3. In a separate bowl, lightly whip the crème fraiche (or beat the thickened cream till soft peaks form) and set aside.

4. In a clean bowl, combine the remaining butter, sugar, water and egg yolks and place over a saucepan of simmering water. Warm to 70°C and whisk the mixture.

5. Using the electric mixer (with a whisk attachment), whip the egg mixture until light and cool.

6. To combine the marquise, gently fold the chocolate into the butter and cocoa mixture.

7. With a whisk, mix in the egg mixture and lastly fold in the whipped crème fraiche.

8. Place mixture into a prepared dish, smooth top with a palate knife. Cover with clingfilm and set in the fridge for two hours and serve at room temperature. Use a hot knife to cut into slices.

9. Prepare the compote (you may use any berries you want). Place berries, sugar and vanilla in a medium saucepan (if using fresh berries, mash it up first prior to adding the sugar and vanilla). Stir regularly on low-medium heat. Simmer until the sugar completely dissolves and the mixture thickens slightly, about 5-10 minutes. Remove from the heat and strain the skins away if you prefer. Set aside to cool.