Cheesecake, Oreos, Red Velvet, and me

I go through these phases of voluntary solitary confinement every few years, the last one being when I was doing my A levels. I had gone the entire summer holiday between AS and A2 not calling a single friend, read an average of 20 books a week, watched SO much tv, and spent most of those three months cooped up in my room, playing on SnitchSeeker. That was a bit drastic, and yet, when the semester began, I just picked up where I left off with my friends (them knowing me far too well) and re-entered "reality".

It seems as if I may have hit the hermit stage again. Not that I don't want to see my friends - I do - but it's rather the fact that I sort of really enjoy my own company and doing what I like to do, which unfortunately are mostly... activities that you do alone (reading, internet surfing, watching tv, baking, fangirling One Direction, etc), and only a certain set of people (usually us internet nerds) enjoy... 

My preferred form of socialising these days are confined to places where I can hear my friends speak so that I may actually have quality time with them, where the lights are steady and do not come with a disclaimer for causing epileptic shock, and where I can be home with enough time to still have a conversation with my family before I start getting ready for bed. 

I think it's just a side-effect of growing older. Meh. 

Anyway, despite all this, I was quite looking forward to catching up with some friends and colleagues at a Bistro in town last night. Had even washed my hair, applied concealer and blush, and put on a fresh outfit! But my dad called, saying him and mum had to go for some networking thing, and needed me to pick up my siblings and grandma at my aunt's in town. Now... I'm not one to say no to my father, even though I explained to him that I had made plans, and that these instructions would disrupt everything. We tried to find an alternative, but in the end, suffice to say, I scrubbed my face clean and changed into PJs. 

To then soothe my grumpy mood at having one of my rare nights out disrupted, I decided to attempt this recipe that I have been dying to try for a few weeks now. I had initially planned on baking it as a round cake for my parents on Valentine's Day, but that didn't happen, so this time I decided to bake it in a square pan... as I liked the cheesecake bar concept I did for the Berry Cheesecake Bars previously. 

So for those of you who are staying in this weekend, why don't you try this recipe out and see if it helps to improve your mood as much as it did with me?

Red Velvet Cheesecake Recipe
Adapted from Willow Bird Baking

Biscuit Base

• 24 Oreos, processed or stuffed-in-a-ziploc-bag-and-smashed-with-a-rolling-pin into crumbs
• 5 1/2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

1. Preheat the oven to 160C and grease and line your baking pan with butter and parchment paper
2. Combine the crumbs and butter, then pour into the pan. Press down with the bottom of a glass for an even and firm base
3. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and set aside

Chocolate Ganache (x2)

• 2oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 2 tbsp confectioners sugar

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and microwave on full heat for roughly 20 seconds, take it out and stir to mix properly
2. Pour the ganache over the biscuit base, leveling with a spoon, then put it in the freezer for at least 30 minutes

Cheesecake Filling

• 24oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp all purpose flour
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs

1. Beat the cream cheese and sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy
2. Add the flour, beat and scrape side of bowl as necessary, then add the vanilla
3. Beat in the eggs one at a time
4. Pour the filling over the biscuit and ganache base in the pan, then bake for 35-45 minutes, or the middle just jiggles gently when the tin is shaken
5. Cool at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour, then chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours to set

Red Velvet Cake

• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon cocoa
• 1 ounce red food colouring 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

1. Preheat the oven to 180C, butter and line the pan with parchment paper for ease of removing later
2. Cream the shortening, egg and sugar until fluffy
3. In a small bowl, mix the cocoa and colouring into a paste, then mix this into the shortening mixture
4. Beat in the salt and vanilla, scraping the side of the mixing bowl as necessary to ensure all current ingredients have been mixed evenly
5. Add the flour and buttermilk, alternating so that you begin with adding flour, then buttermilk, and end with flour
6. Combine baking soda and vinegar in a small bowl and fold into the batter 
7. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until a skewer poked through the cake at an angle comes out clean. Allow to cool completely on a cooling rack

Assembling the cake

The biscuit base, ganache layer, and cheesecake should already be in one pan. Carefully remove from the pan, and place on a cake board or serving platter. Apply another layer of chocolate ganache over the top of the cheesecake, then place the red velvet cake top-side-down on top of the cheesecake. Cut with a long serrated knife as necessary to ensure the sides match up. 

Optional: Drizzle with remaining ganache

I didn't add too much ganache or cream cheese frosting (as indicated in Willow Bird Baking's recipe) as this cake is far too rich on its own. But that's your prerogative! 

Much love,

Nabs

The Inception Cookie

I can practically hear the introduction music to an epic film as I type up this post, even as I look over my computer screen at the container of Inception Cookies. A colleague made a comment to me earlier, as she broke one of those MegaCookies in half, "It takes a special brand of crazy to bake these."

I don't take credit for this insanity, I was inspired by the amazing Picky Palate.

After the Justin Bieber concert yesterday (yes, I went, so what? It was amazing!) the adrenaline was still pumping too hard for me to be able to go to sleep. The screams of the teenage girls who filled the stadium were still echoing in my head and I felt the need to BAKE. I wanted to bake something epic to fit my mood, and I wanted to sing and dance to Justin Bieber songs while I did it.

So since I also had this early morning meeting today, and I've been promising a colleague that I would bake these Inception Cookies for him for a while now, I figured... why the hell not? Which is probably the very same reasoning behind the inception of this recipe. Put an Oreo in a chocolate chip cookie?

Why the hell not?

The recipe is easy enough, but since I didn't have Picky Palate's recipe on me, I just used my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe and threw in an Oreo. Note that I only mixed in ONE cup of chocolate chips for this batch though, considering there's an Oreo smack dab in the midst of it, we could do without as many chips.

It would probably be easier to use a mini ice-cream scoop like PP did in her demonstration, however I don't own one and my dough is a little too soggy to be handled like that. What I did instead was to drop a dollop of dough on the parchment paper, then smoothed it out so that it was slightly larger than an Oreo, then put the Oreo in the middle (smooshed it down a wee bit) then covered it with more dough. Using my teaspoon, I coaxed the dough around it to get it properly covered. As you can see, they get really big:

Bake for 10 minutes, or until the dough is a light golden brown around the edges, and then LEAVE IT TO COOL. Yes, gooey Oreo does sound fracking amazing, but let it cool so that you can see the Oreo right there. It's surreal...

Look, you can see a cookie where it wasn't incepted properly. Mmmmm

lol my colleague just had a bite of the cookie, found the Oreo and exclaimed "It's like finding black gold!"

xx NA