Chocolate Cheesecake Coma and the weekend that was.

Hi.

To start off this week's bake story, I'll share the weekend that was.

Our friends Marc and Jenny just had a baby about a week ago, and we went to visit the bub who they named Jasper. All I can say is that I never thought watching a sleeping baby could be so captivating. He is so awfully cute. I must have stood over his cot staring at him with a stupid wide smile on my face for ages, but I didn't care. I guess babies can make people stupidly happy! It left me wondering what my babies would look like some day and if I'd go broke with all the cute baby clothes that's available now days. But anyway, we all left totally in love with Jasper as I'm sure anyone would be if they saw him.

SATURDAY:



My friend Ni and I went to check this out and walked out with nothing. Noooooothingggg. Oh well!


SUNDAY:



Woke up on Sunday morning with a mission. A mission to bake a chocolate cheescake. But first, needed sustenance in the form of a yummy hot chocolate. The cafe/bakery where these can be found is called Le Pain Quotidien in Surry Hills, Cnr of Fitzroy and Bourk St (right next door to Somedays, how convenient). It has a nice relaxed atmosphere, kind of rustic in the way its quite an open space with large wooden tables and chairs in the centre. I felt like I was having my ham and cheese croissant in a fancy barn.

In the evening, I got to feast again at Christine and Matt's engageme...oops I mean't to say 'birthday party' where there is always an awesome spread. This year they had catering so I got to stuff myself silly with jellyfish salad, fried rice, seafood, hot pot and most importantly- Matt's mum's trifle. It is what rainbows would taste like I think. A wonderful conglomeration of jelly, custard, cake, fruit and cream- if happiness was tangible, it would be this trifle. Since Christine loves to bake, she got about 6 cookbooks which isn't all bad- two of them from me included:




and




But anyway, back to the Chocolate Cheesecake.




Today I induced my fellow workmates into a cheesy, sugary, buttery and chocolatey coma. Recipe # 2 that was tried and tested from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook was quite successful, which I was very happy with as it was the first cheesecake I'd ever made. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

* 900g cream cheese
* 190g caster sugar
* 4 eggs
* 200g dark chocolate
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Base

* 200g dark chocolate
* 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
* 150g melted butter
* 200g digestive biscuits

Method

1.Pre-heat oven to 150 degrees

2. Make the base first. Process the digestive biscuits with cocoa powder in a processor
until finely ground

3.Pour melted butter as the processor is running




I am very aware that it looks abit like poo, but it definitely doesn't taste like crap.


4.Remove and press into base of tin and refrigerate.




5.To make the filling, combine the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla extract and beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. I was abit cheeky and added about 2 tablespoons of vanilla.

6. Add eggs one at a time and beat until well combined.



7.Melt chocolate in a bowl over a simmering saucepan. Make sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. This should melt in a few minutes.

8.Wait for the chocolate to cool before adding spoonfuls of cream cheese mixture to the chocolate and stir. I was impatient and added the cream cheese to the chocolate whilst it was still hot which made the chocolate go really hard and rubbery. Luckily, I knew I was going to stuff up and had extra chocolate at hand. The second time worked a treat though.




9.Pour mixture into the tin and place the tin into another tray with water. It should come up about 2/3 up the sides. Bake for 4-45 minutes. Also, the tin should be greased and lined.



10. Once baked, the cake should still be wobbly in the middle. If not, you have probably over-cooked it. Ba bowww. try again.


Yep so thats one more down: 58 to go.

Yours truly,

x A