Vanillla and Passion Fruit Cheesecake

It's SUMMER!!
Wow the weather has been amazing the last few weeks. This weekend has been a bit dull though so I thought I'd brighten up with a little summer bake! I have a new found love and it's with passion fruit.. I am obsessed! It all started with a passion fruit martini and then suddenly passion fruit began dominating my dessert selection when eating out. I cannot get enough of it so I thought I had to try a dessert with passion fruit and that's just what happened today. I am staying with family this weekend in a house where cheesecake is always a winner in the dessert stakes and this time I decided to mix it up a bit. Instead of doing a baked cheesecake which I have done in the past I decided to do a no bake cheesecake. I have to say it was absolutely delicious and so easy to make. The creamy sweet cheesecake with the bite of the passion fruit is in my opinion my yummiest bake I've made this summer! I hope you guys get a chance to try it and like it as much as I do!

Ingredients:

100g Butter

350g Digestive Biscuits

250g Mascarpone Cheese

80g Icing Sugar

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

400ml Creme Fraiche

300ml Double Cream

5 Passion Fruit

Caster Sugar (amount determined by fruit of Passion Fruit)

Prepare:

Grease and line a 9" Springform Cake Tin with parchment baking paper.

Method:

Begin by breaking up your digestive biscuits. You can do this by putting all your biscuits in a ziplock or freezer bag and bashing with a rolling pin (as you can see below). Alternatively you can break them into a food processor and blitz them until they are a sandy consistency.  

Place your butter into a microwaveable bowl and melt in the microwave. This should take about 1-1.5 minutes depending on the wattage of your microwave. When melted combine the butter with the biscuit and mix until you get a wet sand consistency to the biscuit. Then transfer biscuit mix into your cake tin and press firmly down into the base to create an even layer. Leave to set in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

While your base is setting you can prepare the filling. Using a hand held whisk or electric mixer beat your mascarpone cheese and icing sugar until soft then stir in your creme fraiche and vanilla extract until well combined. If you have a free standing mixer you can use this with the paddle attachment on a low speed.

In a separate bowl whisk your double cream until you get soft falling peaks. Be careful not to over mix!! Fold this cream into your cheese and creme fraiche mix. This mix is now ready to spread over your biscuit base. Spread evenly and place in the fridge to set for at least an hour.

You can now begin your coulis. Cut your passion fruits and scrape out the juice (pips included) into a cup or mug. Place this juice into a small saucepan and measure roughly the same amount of caster sugar into the mug. I used a white mug today and filled half the mug with the passion fruit juice so it was pretty easy to see how much caster sugar I needed. Place the sugar into the saucepan with the juice and bring to the boil, stirring often. Once it has come to the boil bring down to simmer and leave for 3-4 minutes. Then turn off the hob and leave to cool. Once the coulis has cooled you can spread it over the cheesecake. I made this a couple of house in advance so I put the coulis over the cheesecake while still in the tin and placed it back in the fridge. If you're stuck for time though the coulis is fine poured over the cheesecake right before serving.

I would love to hear from you if you try this recipe. Take my word for it (and my family's) it was delicious. If you have any questions you can find me on facebook, twitter and instagram. I hope you are all having a lovely summer so far. If you have any requests for summer bakes don't hesitate to contact me and just ask!

Happy Baking,

O x

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Any of you that follow me on Twitter / Instagram will have seen that it was my birthday last month. When I moved to London and started my first job over here I found it very odd that on your birthday you are the one that brings in the cake to work. Very funny tradition I thought but ok! Although I work in a big and busy office I work on my own tucked away from everyone so last year I didn't tell anyone it was my birthday. On the day itself though word got out that it was my birthday and everyone was asking "Where's the cake??". I had only just started working in this job at the time so I just shrugged it off "What cake? Oh I was meant to bring in cake? I didn't know, I'm new to this country..!!" This year I obviously couldn't use that excuse having been in the UK for nearly 2 years now. I also have gotten to know everyone I work with better and vise versa so they all knew I loved to bake.. I had to bring in something I baked myself. I decided to do a chocolate cake and carrot cake. They went down a treat and when I mentioned the cakes I baked for my birthday on Facebook I was asked could I put up my carrot cake recipe up here so here it is.

I was going for dinner in a friends house on Saturday night so I thought it would be the perfect excuse to bake a cake. I try not to bake too much when I have nobody to give it to or somewhere to bring it as the temptation at home is just too much!! It went down very well and everyone loved it. There were two friends of mine who are coeliac at dinner so I made my cake gluten free but as I previously mentioned in my lemon slices post you can use either gluten free or regular self raising flour in this recipe. I used a cream cheese frosting with this recipe (my all time favourite frosting).

Ingredients

Cake
190g Self Raising Flour / Gluten Free Self Raising Flour
300g Caster Sugar
1.5 tsp Cinnamon
250mls Vegetable Oil
3 Eggs
250g Carrots (grated)
100g Chopped Walnuts

Cream Cheese Frosting
75g Unsalted Butter (at room temperature)
450g Icing Sugar (sifted)
180g Cream Cheese (Philadelphia- Full fat- From fridge)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Prepare

Pre-heat your oven to 180C or 170C Fan assisted oven. Grease and line two 8" round sandwich cake tins.

Method

In a large mixing bowl mix your flour (sifted), sugar and cinnamon. Add your oil and eggs to your dry ingredients. Stir until well combined. I just used a hand held whisk. These ingredients mix very easily. Once well incorporated stir in your carrots and walnuts. Divide your mixture between the two prepared baking tins and place in your preheated oven for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer placed into the middle comes out clean. You should also be able to press down the top of the cake and have it bounce back. Leave to cool in their tins on a wire rack and prepare your icing.

For your icing mix your butter and icing sugar with a hand held electric whisk or in a free standing mixer with paddle attachment on a low speed to begin with (unless you want a face full of dust) and slowly increase to medium speed. Once well combined add your philadelphia and vanilla extract in one and turn up speed to medium-high and leave to mix for about 5 minutes. Frosting will be light and fluffy. Be careful not to over mix as it can become runny quite quickly. Fill and ice your cake covering the top and sides if required. As you can see in the first picture above I decorated the carrot cake on my birthday with walnuts but for this one I left it plain. Decoration is optional!

As you can see there was nothing left on the plates.. this cake is an all round winner. Let me know if you try it out and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask me. You can find me on twitter, facebook and instagram and I love to hear from you when you try out my recipes so feel free to contact me via any of those links or comment below. Requests for recipes are always welcome- I love a challenge!

Happy Baking,
O x