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Tuesday 24 November 2015

Caramel Toffee Cheesecake

Recipe base here

Although I am a cheesecake novice, I HAD to try this from one of my favourite recipe blogs: yammiesnoshery.com

I love Yammie's style, It's effortlessly beautiful and her photos are inspiring. She embraces the 'nobbly', homemade look, yet her creations are ones you would pay top dollar for. Plus like my baking muse, Nigella Lawson, she doesn't shy away from using the ingredients that without, would compromise the flavour. I'm not used to using cup measurements, but I bought a fun set of cups that I am only hoping are the same size as their American counterparts - it's all about ratio, anyway - and I just convert the butter measurement into grams so I can use my scales.

This was a recipe that had a five components: the toffee biscuity base, melted chocolate topping for said base, the cheesecake mix, of course, toffee topping, and cream decoration. The ingredients list consisted of 13 or so items.

Daim and the Gang!

Just taking a photo of the ingredients all together was a challenge! I rarely do such a stunt, let alone even take all my ingredients out as I dislike being surrounded by anything other than my duvet, but I felt this one was special. And indeed it was,

That would usually be enough to put me off, but I had a guest coming that I wanted to impress. So much so that I KNEW this had to be the recipe, as much I also knew I had to do a test run, such was my lack of confidence in my cheesecake making abilities. This would be the second one I had ever made.

Buttery Biscuit Base
(Masterchef UK fans might get that reference)
Lining the tin! Oh my goodness, what a kerfuffle! That was arduous.
Then I got on with the biscuit base with crushed toffee bits. Once I worked out what Heath bars were, I realised they were similar to Daim bars (or Dime bars, as I'm old skool, innit!).
Simple enough... but it later turned out that I have poor depth perception and made the base way too thick. I improved this for the 'real thing', but I think I need to be governed by the needs of the cake rather than the prescribed amounts of the recipe.

Then we melt the chocolate. I won't lie: it pained me to use so many of my precious chocolate chips just to melt them. Yes, yes, I could have chopped or grated a bar of chocolate, but who has the time?! Chocolate chips are only just becoming a bit more common in supermarkets in Stockholm, Sweden, in the last 15 or so months, and as is so often my complaint, prices for them are not low. I buy them in a suspicious bulk pattern and then hoard them like a dragon over its... erm... loot. I didn't want to say 'hoard' again!

The Hoard! It's melted, melted!
What a cruel, cruel, world!

A-ny-way, Then the caramel... again fairly straightforward American style with cream, very yummy. The knee weakening moment was actually when that caramel was mixed in with the cheesecake mixture. Oh. My. Goodness. If I was more dramatic, which is hard to believe, I would have sat down. That mixture was to die for. Soooooo gooooood. I almost didn't want to bake it. I did, though.

That mixture! Wooh!

Wrapped in damp dishcloths as I have no
tray large enough to hold it

Bekked


The decoration. Oh la la, I royally messed this one up. I didn't read the instructions properly so I mixed the caramel with some whipped cream and made... what?! I'll settle with caramel cream. I cheated and used a spray can for the whipped cream topping, and yes, it was impressive. I learned the hard way that whipped cream sinks, so had to re-spray the next day.

Decorated with erroneous caramel cream

2nd attempt

The sheer weight of it plus the stickiness from the fat in the base made it difficult remove from the base of the tin, so I had to just sit by and cry into my lap whilst my colleagues cut on my tin. With metal knives!!! Oh, the agony! The base was too thick on both occasions to cut through with plastic utensils, so it was an unfortunate necessity.

Attempt #1. The assault weapons, your Honour

Attempt #1 Slice.
Doesn't do her justice, really.

Whilst this is most certainly a show stopper and has had repeated requests for a return, I feel overwhelmed by this cake and it had better be a very special occasion for me to make it again.

Thank you all, and good night!

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