Saturday, June 27, 2009

dinner


I made dinner today for the first time in a looong time and probably the last time too, (darntrials). Massaman curry, Chicken Stirfry, Stuffed bitter melon and Stirfried vegetables, mmm yumm. TOok the whole day though, it always takes me forever to cook ;P I'll never make it to masterchef at this rate.


There goes the neighbourhood . . .

Ah, look who's finally hopped on the bandwagon. It feel so bizzare blogging your thoughts and feelings, especially in full sentences! But I wanted to share my journey through cooking, love and christianity and have a little corner in cyberspace where I can store recipes. Mm, I made these mini cheesecakes a while back, but I found photos and wanted to share these cute pictures with you!

Mini Marbled Cheesecakes

Crust:

200g of your favourite biscuits (I use timtams!)
1/4 cup dessicated coconut
50g chopped macadamia nuts
50g melted butter (more if you use drier biscuits)
Filling:
500g or 2 blocks of cream cheese, softened
1 x 400g condensed milk
3 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla essence
100 g white chocolate, melted
100g dark chocolate, melted
This was inspired by Lori's recipes http://dessertcomesfirst.com/archives/424 which is really great, but I find that coconut and nuts in the crust just make this cheesecake heavenly!

Method.
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celcius, and line cupcake tins with foil cupcake patties.

For the crust, break up the biscuits into large chunks or smaller chunks depending on what kind of crust you like. Add the coconut, chopped nuts and mix in the melted butter. Press the base into the patty cases and pop it in the fridge to firm it up a little.

In the meantime, beat the cream cheese until fluffy. Add the condensed milk gradually until well mixed. Add eggs one a time, and the 1 tsp of vanilla. Separate the batter into two halves, and beat the white chocolate and dark chocolate into one each. Carefully dollop separate batters into each patty case, mixing them, marbling them (by running a knife and swirling it to make patterns) or use toothpicks to create cute pictures!

Before baking, gently tap the pan to get rid of air bubbles in the batter. place the pan in a waterbath (a tray filled with water) to prevent overheating and cracking in the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Makes about 18-24.

PS. The cheesecakes actually shrivelled up in the oven and air bubbles came up when the water in the waterbath ran out, so make sure it doesn't dry out!

Hehe, me, my sister and her friend had a lot of fun with these! Enjoy!

And does anyone know how to rotate pictures?