Well, one of the dishes we do in the cookery school is a cheesecake, and I’m going to show you how to do it. And it was inspired by the time that I went to New York and went to this great cheesecake shop that was underneath the Rockefeller Center.
Before I do that, I’d just like to do a little plug, because once a week I write a food blog, and there’s all sorts of interesting things, recipes, restaurants I’ve been to. It’s all food related, and it’s on the website at undergroundcookeryschool.com. So do have a look at that.
And after the cheesecake recipe, we’ll do the prize draw for the competition.
Right. You don’t want to believe how easy a cheesecake is to make, and everybody loves it.
The first thing we need to do is get the base done. I’ve already blitzed up digestive biscuits. I’ve got some melted butter here.
I did once try doing chocolate digestive biscuits, because I thought it be more fun, but it just doesn’t work. It doesn’t sort of stick together and create a worthy base.
So I’m just going to mix the butter and the biscuit crumbs.
Now what I’ve done is I’ve already buttered and flowered the tin.
Right, so that goes in there. And then what we’re going to do is just smooth the bread crumb base into the spring form tin. It’s got a little buckle there. You bake it. You let it rest for about five or six minutes so it contracts, and then just run a knife around and then open it up, and the cheesecake comes out nice and easily.
Well, we’ve done the base. So we now need to just make the filling.
I’ve got five whole eggs, and they’re going to go into here. Added to that will be most of the sugar. I’ll tell you why in a minute. We’re going to put all of the cream cheese, full fat. The creme fraiche goes in. Put about 500 creme fraiche and about 750 cream cheese, 200 grams of sugar. I’ve got lemon juice, I’m going to put most of, and 50 grams of corn flour. So that all goes in, and I’m just going to give that a good old mix with the electric hand mixer.
Here we go. In we go.
All those ingredients are nicely combined. I’m going to have a little taste. Don’t ever be a slave to a recipe. Have a taste and see what you think. The recipe that I gave you had quite a lot of sugar in it, and I’ve just tasted it and, actually, I’ wouldn’t put it in. It could do with the rest of the lemon juice, though. So I’m just going to give that a quick whiz.
See, that’s very nice. And actually, at this point, you can now put whatever you’d like in here. So you can buy stuff from artisan cook shops and then put ingredients in.
This is going to be, you know, just a plain cheesecake, so I’m not going to put anything else in there. But now would be the time to add strawberries, and if you are putting fruit in, it’s always a good idea to flour them so they don’t sink to the bottom.
Right. I’m going to pour this mixture into here, and then we’re going to whack it in the oven. Job done.
I normally reckon on about 150 degrees or 350F.
The wobble test is always a good one. Just give it a shake, and if it looks like it isn’t cooked, then it isn’t. Or the toothpick test, where you stick a toothpick in the middle. If it comes out all creamy, then clearly it isn’t cooked. If it comes out nice and clean, it is.
I like to actually do it two or three minutes before it’s actually properly cooked so that you can finish cooking it off on the outside, and it’s got a nice firmness and it’s set.
Anyway, we’ll have a look at that. I reckon maybe about an hour. But ovens do, you know, no oven is the same, so forget cooking times in any recipe. It’s all about the oven that you’re cooking it in.
Right. What I’m going to show is the best way of getting it out of the tin. So I’m just going to get a knife and go all the way around. Now, I think the temptation sometimes is to take it out of the oven, brilliant, now let’s get it out of the tin. But let it rest for a good 20 minutes. It should contract anyway. If you take it out of the tin immediately, it will just collapse.
So you undo the buckle, and then I’m pretty pleased with that actually. If you don’t get this level of yellow when you do it at home, it may have something to do with the eggs, but these are very, very free range and very organic.
Here’s my little tip on how to cut up any pastry. If you go halfway, like that, to begin with, and then after having done that, you cut it into quarters. You can then do the final third just by, sort of, eye. That way the person sitting next to you doesn’t get a bigger piece than you, and then they think, “Well, what’s he trying to say to me?”
So anyway, you know what I mean. So I’m going to cut this. This should yield about 12 portions. And that is, I think, a very good lesson on how to portion up.
We’ll stick that on there. And there you have the most fantastic baked cheesecake.
Well, hopefully, you’ll all be making cheesecake now.
Anyone that leaves a nice review on either Google or Facebook gets entered into this little thing here to see if they’re going to win a free pasta machine. So thanks for doing that. And the winner is, oh, Gary Patrick. Thanks, Gary.
I’ll see you in a couple of weeks’ time, three to be exact, when I will be showing you how to make soup.
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— Underground Cookery (@cookinglesson) October 14, 2013