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Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Brownie Bottom Cheesecake .(scribbled at 21:33 )
Wowzers. A baking post for the first time in yonks. So, my memories of the first few weeks of my job pretty much circulate around discussing The Great British Bake Off with fellow colleagues over our morning cup of tea. It was brilliant, as soon as we all started talking about Mary Berry, Shortcrust pastry and the sparks between Paul Hollywood and Cathryn, I knew I was totally at home.
A couple of months later, I had an email pop into my inbox about a Collections Department bake off, to be held shortly before Christmas. Unlike GBBO, this was essentially just an afternoon of bringing in some form of bread/biscuit/pastry dish/cake to be judged against others in our department. Which sounds bloody amazing, non? As much as I would have liked to opt for a tarte tatin, it is much easier to carry a cake on the Victoria Line in rush hour. Evidently, everyone else who entered this bake off had a similar trail of thought, as what was originally intended to be an afternoon of sampling different baking techniques just turned out to be a massive cake fest’.
Unfortunately, my brownie-bottom-cheesecake lost to the Eggnog Cupcakes (FAR more original, and Christmas themed), but it was pretty tasty, without being too heavy on the stomach. That said, this cake is not for the faint hearted (or faint waistline, for that matter.). Yours truly managed to have her cake and eat it on Monday afternoon… along with everyone else's. In a matter of 20 minutes, I’d consumed 2000 calories through sugar and cream cheese alone. Speaking of, if you’re going to bake a cheesecake, do it properly and don’t opt for any of that ‘light’ cream cheese. There is no such thing as a health conscious cheesecake, and anything other than full fat will result in a grainy consistency. Also, in the past I’ve opted for the super cheap own supermarket own brand cheese, and this creates a similar effect. It may set you back an extra couple of quid, but it’s far much easier to choose the better made cheese (read: Philadelphia).
Brownie Bottom Cheesecake (Serves 16*)
Ingredients:
- Enough premade brownie mix to line a medium baking tin(you can either quickly mix up one of those dead easy BBC Good Food ones, or make up a packet of the dried brownie mix that you only need to add an egg in)
-400g full fat cream cheese
-300g dairy toffee (I opted for the 33p packets that they do in Sainsbury’s)
-2 eggs
-100g caster sugar
-170ml tin of evaporated milk
-1tsp vanilla extract
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180 C and line and grease and line a 9 inch baking tin (a springform tin works best.
2. Make up your brownie mixture and apply it evenly into the baking tin. Bake for around 35 minutes/until cooked.
3. Melt the toffees with the evaporated milk in a saucepan, over a low heat. It takes persistence but it should eventually form a smooth consistency. Once complete, pour two thirds of this onto your initial brownie layer (the remaining toffee mixture will be used to drizzle over the final cheesecake).
4. In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla extract together until smooth. Then beat the eggs in one at a time. Pour this into the tin, so it evenly covers the entire toffee layer. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes.
5. Following this, leave the cake to chill in its tin. Run a knife around the edge of the cake, and take it out the tin. Then drizzle over the remaining toffee mixture (if it’s gone a tad gloopy just reheat it for a few minutes…)
6. Stuff yer face.
*I ate a third of this cake. Whoops...
Unwrapping toffees is an arduous process, trust me.
Once your toffee layer is in the tin it should look a little like this:
Cheesecake done:
Once done, it should look a little something like (read: better than) this:
and here are all the other entries, they looked (and tasted!) INCROYABLE
Labels: Baking, Brownie Cheesecake Recipe, Calories, Christmas, Christmas Dessert Photographs, Edible Glitter, Eggnog Cupcakes, GBBO, Great British Bake Off, Yum
