Mince Pie Cheesecake

So you're fed up of eating Christmas cake, and you've got hundreds of mince pies left over... you're probably looking for a recipe to make use of those pastry delights. Look no further! Here's my attempt at Sunday Brunch's Mince Pie Cheesecake.

Ingredients

• 200g digestives
• 125g butter
• 400g cream cheese
• 800g ricotta
• 150g caster sugar
• 6 eggs
• 300g mince pies

First preheat the oven to 175 degrees. Whilst you're melting the butter gently in a pan, crush the biscuits by putting them in a sandwich bag and whacking them with a rolling pin. Now take the melted butter off the heat and stir in the biscuit crumbs. Line the bottom of a spring form tin with baking parchment and then press the biscuit mixture into the bottom of the tin until sturdy.

Now mix the cream cheese, ricotta and sugar in a food processor until smooth, then add the eggs (slightly whisked first). After they are all combined, crumble in the mince pies and stir with a spoon. Don't mix with the food processor as this will cut them up too much.

Pour the mixture into the tin and cook for approx. 1 hour, turning half way to colour evenly on both sides. Take the cheesecake out of the oven when the very centre is still slightly uncooked, as the heat from the rest of the cheesecake will cook it. 

Now leave to cool completely before taking out of the tin and serving. We found that it tasted nicer the day after! You could also try this recipe with Christmas pudding instead of mince pies.

Gingerbread House

To get in the mood for Christmas I thought it was about time I tried making a festive Gingerbread House, with a bit of help from my cousin! I found a very simple recipe on BBC Good Food which even has templates that you can print out to use!

Ingredients

• 250g butter
• 200g muscovado sugar
• 7tbsp golden syrup
• 600g plain flour
• 4tsp ground ginger

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees and then melt the butter, muscovado sugar and syrup in a saucepan. Next mix the flour and ginger together in a large bowl and then stir in the melted butter mixture until it's made a dough. I added a bit of extra flour as my dough seemed to be a bit too soft!


Now roll out the mixture so that it's roughly 2cm thick and then either cut out the shapes freehand or use the template from the Good Food recipe as a guide. I printed one copy of the template off and then dotted holes around the edge for each shape, so that I could cut the shape out after removing the template. I made stars out of the excess mixture which are nice to keep as a separate snack! 

Once you have all of your shapes cut out, place them on a baking sheet or baking parchment and then on a baking tray. Cook for 12 mins or until golden, then leave to cool. Good Food recommend that you trim the shapes again with the templates. Although this would have made my house neater, I didn't want to risk breaking the gingerbread, at least not on my first try!

Now you need to make the icing and start assembling the house:

• 2 egg whites
• 500g icing sugar

Whisk the egg whites until fluffy then add the icing sugar, a little bit at a time. The icing will be quite tough but this will help weld the gingerbread together to make it sturdy! Now spread a little bit of the icing on each edge of the house's walls and stick together. Support the walls with weights (I used bags of flour) to help hold it in place until the icing has dried. Leave for roughly 45 mins and then stick the roof panels on with the icing. Hold the panels until the icing is dry enough to hold them. Then leave for another 30 mins until completely dry.

You're now ready to decorate! Of course the design is up to you, I used icing and white chocolate buttons for the snowy roof, cut up chocolate fingers for the windows and doors and put on strawberry laces and coloured balls for fairy lights. To help stick the decorations on, make some runny icing to use as glue!

And voila, one gingerbread house! 

Secret Santa...

Secret santa, at the time a good idea but then comes the worry about what to get them... This year I chose the name of someone 'obsessed' with Zayn from One Direction so I knew straight away what to get her!

I ordered some sheets of edible paper with pictures of Zayn's face on them from the internet and then put them on top of lots of mini chocolate cupcakes topped with buttercream. I ended up giving her 3 boxes of the cakes... needless to say she loved them!

White Chocolate and Strawberry Cake

I had the difficult task of making a birthday cake for my housemate recently, made harder when she requested I use white chocolate and strawberries. I felt like I was a contestant on Ready, Steady, Cook! Although it's a nice change to make something different to the usual boring chocolate cake.

So with my ingredients set, I decided to keep it simple and make a plain sponge, with a few additions...

Cake Ingredients

• 225g self-raising flour
• 225g soft butter
• 225g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 100g white chocolate chips

First preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line two sandwich tins with butter and baking parchment. Next measure the butter, sugar, eggs and baking powder into a large bowl and mix. Now sieve the flour into the mixture and fold in. This will keep the cake light and fluffy! Finally add the chocolate chips. Only stir enough for the chips to be mixed in, keeping the air in your cake.

It's now ready to bake. Split the mixture between the two cake tins and put on the middle shelf of the oven. Bake for 20 minutes, then test by putting a knife in the middle of each cake. If it comes out clean it's ready, if not put the cakes back in until done. (Keep testing the cakes regularly to make sure that they don't burn)

When ready, leave the cakes to cool on a wire rack (or chopping board if you don't have one) before icing.

Icing Ingredients

• 300g soft butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 750g icing sugar
• 150g white chocolate

Now you're ready to literally put the icing on the cake! Start by creaming (or mixing) the butter, then add the vanilla and icing sugar. I always sieve the icing sugar first, to make sure there are no lumps in the buttercream! Stir well to ensure that it's all mixed together nicely.

Now for the tricky bit. Carefully melt the chocolate (either in short bursts in the microwave or in a glass bowl over boiling water) then stir it into the buttercream. Now immediately spread the chocolate buttercream on the cake, smoothing half over each cake and then assembling them. You have to be fast as the melted chocolate sets very fast, making it harder to spread! For decoration, I sliced strawberries and covered the top of the cake with them. 

Keep the cake covered in the fridge and try to eat within a few days or it'll start going soggy (although I'm sure that won't be a problem!)

Let me know how you get on!

Hello...

 I'm currently a student and have discovered baking as a good way to relax at the end of long weeks of lectures and studying. 

The housemates don't complain either!

I'll be updating this blog with bakes I've done that week, any handy tips I've come across and recipes I've altered slightly. 

Hope you enjoy!