Pope Cheesecake: Chocolate Pecan Toffee Cheesecake with Raspberry Sauce

This is a continuation of the Customised Bake Trial that I am sincerely glad I did as I now know the extent of inaccuracy that recipes can have or knowledge level they expect.

This time, I made my own caramel butterscotch sauce with a method that seemed to work, added the pecans in afterwards, then poured it on the base, and placed it in the fridge to cool. Mistake. The lovely oozy caramel hardened into a near impenetrable toffee. I really must research this caramel umbrella practically to fully understand this.

Pecan Caramel

Anyway, in a desperate bid to save my springform from hacking machetes, I baked the base with the toffee layer for 20 minutes to soften it before the cheesecake mix went in.

One of the comments from the client was that it was dense. Although a very kind offer was extended for me to stay and join my colleague client, I opted out, thinking I would come home and snoozeafter not sleeping all night. That didn't happen. It seems I can survive on a half-hour disco nap.

Chocolate Cheesecake Mixture

Back to the matter in hand... the denseness. This may have been due having 100g less of cream cheese than what was required. I may amend that sentence... in my crazed sleep-deprived brain it seems wrong. I adjusted the mixture on the fly, reducing the sugar, chocolate, and egg content, to compensate, but that may well have been the reason. I have tweaked my method, so I got a much better finish on the cream cheese mixture than on the first attempt.

Pre-bake

I was able to procure frozen raspberries easier than I thought I would, and the sauce was delicious. I was tempted to syphon some off for private usage, but decided I would make another batch as I still had more sauce.

Sauce

Overall, I believe the review was good, and I was pleased with the cake... just a shame I didn't have enough cream cheese.

In honour of the client who designed this cheesecake, I will call this a Pope Cheesecake.

Finito

Pope Cheesecake and Berry Fruit Sauce available at Samara's Baked Goods

Chocolate Pecan Pie Cheesecake with Berry Sauce - Customised Bake Trial

I am very excited about this cheesecake, especially as this is an original recipe for a bespoke order from my store.

My client and I went through my recipe books and settled on a chocolate cheesecake recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery book as a base, and incorporating nutty and fruity elements. We decided to try out a nut base with a raspberry sauce to drizzle over it.

I did some research into nut bases, and found a few gluten free options, but then I found a Pin that incorporated pecan pie and cheesecake.

Cocoa Biscuit Base Mixture

This gave me the idea to make a pecan pie filling to sit on the cocoa base, and top with the chocolate cheesecake.

The recipe seemed suspicious as it included eggs in a sugary-syrup pecan mixture with melted butter, and this potion was then expected to be boiled! With eggs in it!!! Outrageous. I was seriously torn whether to go with my instinct and omit the eggs, or to follow the rules. The jobsworth won this time. In my mind this was no win, as the mixture puffed up unexpectedly and when stirring it to calm it, I discovered the sugars had melted and burned to the bottom of the pan along with a substantial amount of pecans, and these offensive burnt bits were happily entering the good part like so many bad salmon.

I was in a dilemma again. Should I cut my losses, and make another batch, or was it *just* passable? Miss Thrift won that battle: I plugged on, and tapped into the hope that the predominantly sweet flavours will put up a spirited fight against the burned flavours. If it harms the taste, I will opt for a nut crust for the final product.

Then came the cheesecake mixture. Feeling somewhat deflated from the pecan pie filling fiasco, I wasn't as diligent as I should have been when incorporating the melted chocolate into the cream cheese mixture, and was left with some unattractive chocolate clumps floating about. Something to fix for next time.

Speckly Chessecake

I have finally bought a pan large enough to hold my springform tin for Bain Marie baking, and I made such a hoohah of getting that into the oven, that I disappointed myself. I remembered to wrap the tin in foil - eventually - however I may have been overzealous when filling the pan with water, and I'm worried that the water got into the springform... and my cake! I'll have to watch out for that when it's sliced.

Homemade Blueberry and Raspberry Sauce

The original plan was to make a raspberry sauce to drizzle over the top, and having become accustomed to a frozen 'pick and mix' selection of fruits in Swedish supermarkets, I didn't anticipate there not being any available. Ah, such arrogance. I had to improvise and buy a packet of raspberries mixed with blueberries. I made a simple sauce, and I will make sure I go to a larger supermarket and find frozen raspberries if the client doesn't like this trial.

Baked! What a lovely colour

The author of the pecan pie recipe said that her cheesecake developed a huge crack, and whilst I have not yet been afflicted by this, I made sure to cool the cheesecake in the oven with the door open for an hour to prevent it.

I will see how it cuts tomorrow at work, but I am actually feeling quite positive about this cake, despite the pecan pie filling mistake.

Brownie Cake with Peanut Caramel Butterscotch

Recipe Base here from Jacquelyn Clark

Now as much as I am a huge fan of being frugal, I also appreciate that you must risk waste in order to discover greatness, so my inner scientist gets her chance to play quite a bit.

I have on countless times metaphorically shaken my fist at the sky when a recipe hasn't worked out, and 9 times out of 10, the recipe is from the Internet. This is not to say that all internet recipes do not work, they all work on some level, but they don't always meet my expectations.

Yesterday I had some friends come around for a donut party; I had some piecrust ideas of two evenings of baking beforehand so that my guests could decorate them using the left over glazes that were accumulating in my refrigerator, requiring precious Tupperware tubs. That of course didn't happen, considering that my day job has been especially busy over the past few weeks, and my motivation to do anything when I get home is very low.

I decided to compensate by making a 'base' cake so that there was something for my guests to eat whilst donuts were being made, and made an uncharacteristically non-cautious move to try a new recipe as my only option. Risk taker, that I am.

In the last few months, I have really been increasing my usage of Pinterest, I didn't really get the concept at first, and to be honest, I probably still don't, however it has proved to be a great source of recipes and ideas for me. Check out my Social Media buttons at the top right of this window to see my perception of the site. Constructive opinions always welcome of course!

Anyhoo, the picture of this recipe was far too much for me to resist, however as it has peanuts, it's a recipe I would avoid making as taking it to work where there are many people who have nut allergies would not be such a good idea.

The recipe worked well... I did add a 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda rather than 1/4, and the cake rose well in the oven, nearly to the top of my springform tin. This was far more than I thought it would seeing as it is a brownie cake, but not an unpleasant surprise.
No, no, that occurred after I took it out of the oven. It was all very sad. The cake sank in the middle, quite possibly a combination of the excess bicarb, or over beating when adding the dry ingredients.
I must admit that I am reluctant to blame myself as it is not my style to over beat... I have a knack for 'lagom' mixing, and as much as it is feasible as a principle, the amount of bicarbonate does not usually affect the rise unless it is in excess of a 1.5 teaspoons, so unfortunately, innocent or not, I am holding the ratios of the recipe responsible here. It doesn't help the recipes's case that the caramel timings were a bit off, but I can be more forgiving of that as I believe the person who made the recipe lives in a warmer climate than I do, so that is understandable.

Hey! The first time I can use a cake stand I received
over a year ago for my birthday

I haven't had an opportunity to taste the cake just yet, but I did taste the peanut caramel butterscotch, and was suitably impressed. Such a great combination. I just love caramel, in its many different forms: caramel, caramel sauce, butterscotch (yes, I have been researching, as the word 'caramel' is bandied about covering many different things with a similar taste and/or consistency, yet varying ingredients). Adding peanuts to pretty much any of these forms is a natural combination, and was a joy to be able to do it myself for once with no guilt or worries about striking someone down with an anaphylactic reaction.

I really need to buy a cake lifter so I can
protect my lovely tins

I am not completely writing this recipe off as a base, but I do have plenty of other sure-fire brownie recipes I could use. I will however always remember that peanut caramel butterscotch sauce, and have some ideas of how to tweak it... I guess I need to have some more guests over so I can test it out!

Coconut Chocolate Cake

 Recipe base from Restlesschipotle.com (LINK)

On my Bundt quest that has no particular end goal, I stumbled upon this recipe.
Whilst the description talked a big game, about the amazing pairing of coconut and chocolate, and rum, I found it difficult to believe that a recipe that only had coconut milk - which has a very delicate flavour - as its connection to coconut was going to be that flavoursome.

Now don't get me wrong, the cake batter was nice, and after a previous incident with too much density, I bought a new hand blender, and was really taking precautions not to overbeat the batter.

Batter

I unintentionally used under half of the chocolate from the recipe, but I didn't have enough dark chocolate anyway. I don't feel it hurt the recipe.

As the cake has an option of adding a cup of macadamia nuts, I would say that I would probably add a cup of desiccated coconut. This somewhat defeats the purpose of avoiding the texture, however I can't in all good conscious say that this is a coconut cake. Maybe adding tablespoon of coconut extract, or replacing the quarter cup of rum for Malibu could be an option.

with chocolate medley

My batter came out very velvety and rose magnificently from the pan as it was baking. Far too much batter for my 12 cup bundt. I don't blame the recipe, I should have recognised that it was too full, and made cupcakes with the remainder.

Bundt!

After turning the cake out, I decided in a moment of madness/genius to cut the bottom off the cake to even it up. I then discovered what is becoming a recurring nightmare for me: Density. Is that part still not baked properly?! I whipped it back into the oven with a foil hat for another 15-20 minutes, contradictorily still on its cooling rack. After this point I admitted defeat, and took it out to cool entirely.

Finished Product

As the Swedes say, kämpa kämpa. I finished the cake off by pouring half of the coconut rum sauce over it, and reserving the other half to heat up and pour over it the next day.

The cake was still demolished within 10 minutes, and whilst I was lurking in the sidelines, eagle-eyeing the cake and its inner appearance, I discovered to my wary yet somewhat happy bewilderment that the cake appeared to have repaired itself overnight! No dense, doughy patches or anything! Not sure how that happened, but I'm pleased... for now.

Triple Chocolate Merlot Bundt Cake

Recipe from Restless Chipotle (LINK)

Beautiful, extremely indulgent, chocolate cake

Requires around 600g of chocolate chips, and half a bottle of merlot for the cake and ganache.

I used a mix of dark and milk chocolate chips, pretty much 1:1.

The bundt tin I used was too small, so the cake rose above the edge, fortunately it didn't spill over. I felt this affected the baking time (1hr 10 minutes). I will get a larger tin for the next time I try this cake (which I will be doing)!*

My first ever Bundt

Whilst I appreciate that browned butter adds to the richness and depth of flavour, I think I will choose when to go through this process, depending on the intended consumers. My colleagues will probably not discern the difference between the flavours beyond 'chocolate', so if it is for them, I doubt I will go beyond just melting the butter.

The Cut

*I made my second attempt at this cake in March 2015, and following my notes, reduced the amount of batter in the tin. I may have been a bit too heavy handed with my reduction, as the cake that came out was pretty pitiful. I made cupcakes with the 'left over' batter, and they were pretty nice. I need to work out that happy fill point of the batter...

2nd attempt - March 2015