Strawberry cheesecake

Having played around with many food processors in the past and not been happy with any of them, I have finally found one that works for me. A BREVILLE ICON BFP650. In the recipe book that comes with it is a lovely recipe for a lemon cheesecake, but I wanted to make a strawberry one so I have adapted it. Here's what I did. Ingredients....

250g pkt plain sweet Biscuits.
125 Butter (melted)
250g Cream Cheese (cubed and softened)
400g can sweetened Condensed Milk.
125ml Cream.
1 tablespoon Gelatin powder.
10ml boiling water.
2 teaspoons Strawberry essence.
2 punnets Strawberries. (half a punnet diced and reserve the rest sliced for the top)
2 tablespoons of strawberry Jam.
A little boiling water.

Method...

With butter, grease a 20cm spring form tin and set aside.
Melt the butter in the microwave on 50% power and allow to cool. Break the biscuits in to quarters and place in processor and pulse until finely crushed. Add melted butter slowly through the food chute and process until combined. Remove crumb mixture from bowl and press in to spring form tin, over the base and up the sides.
Place cream cheese, condensed milk and cream in to the food processor and combine but don't over do this. Melt the gelatin in the boiling water and stir well, add this and the strawberry essence to the cheese mix now and pulse for a second or two. Stir in the diced strawberries and put in to the biscuit case in tin. Put this in the fridge now to set, this can take up to three hours, mine was done in two hours.
Place the sliced strawberries on the top in a pattern to suit yourself. Add the boiling water to the jam and brush on with a pastry brush to give the strawberries a lovely glaze.

Bread pudding.

This recipe comes from my Mum's kitchen. She had made it just before I visited last. We had it as a cake, but should be eaten warmed with custard. Will give you her recipe first, and then tell you what I did.

Bread Pudding.

250 grams STALE WHITE BREAD. (crusts removed)
50 grams UNSALTED BUTTER (melted)
50 grams SUGAR.
1 tsp. GRATED NUTMEG.
1/2 tsp. MIXED SPICE.
2 tablesps. BITTER ORANGE MARMALADE.
100 grams MIXED DRIED FRUIT.
1 large EGG.
MILK. (Just a little, you may not need)

Break the bread into small pieces and put into
a mixing bowl. Pour over enough water to cover and let stand for 30 minutes.
In another bowl, mix together butter, sugar,spices, marmalade, fruit and egg.
Drain the bread and squeeze to remove excess water. Now add the soaked bread to the other mixture. Add the milk now, if a little dry, needs to be a sticky consistency.
Put mixture into a greased 18 cm square cake tin and bake at 180c for 1-1 1/4 hours or until firm.
The chances I made.
Used fruit loaf and forgot to cut off crusts,
but this did not matter.
Used dark brown sugar.
Used sultanas and pitted prunes.
Needed no milk.
This smelted so Christmasy to me,
and ours has been eaten cold.

Strawberry Trifle.

I have made the traditional sherry trifle many times, and usually at Christmas time. But having found a new series of liqueurs recently, (well, new to me) I really wanted to see if this would work, and it did.

The liqueurs are VOK made here in Australia. With some really sexy and delicious cocktails at their website. www.voktails.com.au (Have a look at *Sex on the Beach*)

I used the Orange Curacao in the Chocolate Orange Cake. (See under my labels)

I also wanted to try it with making blancmange instead of the custard, but when it came to the making, I had no cornflour. So good old BIRDS CUSTARD with a dash of strawberry essence did the trick.

I used shop bought sponge but you could use

your own.

To make your layers.

Slice cake and put in bottom of large bowl.

Dollop strawberry jam over this.

Pour the Strawberry liqueur over the cake.

Then soak over night.

Make 1 litre of custard and allow to cool.

Put over the soaked cake.

(I let mine get very cold in the fridge, before adding the cream.)

Whip cream until it forms peaks.

Spread over the custard.

Decorate with fresh strawberries.

Do hope you have fun with making yours and do visit that web site. They have some lovely recipes there. I am a big VOK fan now, and will be getting the Melon next.

Fruit salad and raspberry sorbet

Fresh fruit is so beautiful here in Australia at the moment, even though it is winter. And what could be nicer and healthy too, than a fruit salad.

My fruit salads change every time I make them, but usually add one tin of fruit so I can get a lovely syrupy juicy sweet salad.

With this one I used.....

Half a HONEY DEW MELON.

1 GRANNY SMITH APPLE.

1 cup of frozen STRAWBERRIES.

1 cup of frozen RASPBERRIES.

1 tin of APRICOTS in syrup.

Prepare all fruit and dice where needed. Put all into a bowl and chill in the fridge.

I served mine with Raspberry Sorbet and sprinkled a few raspberry bits over the top.

You could change the fruits to suit yourself and add a liqueur to the syrup. That is soooooo delish.

KNICKERBOCKER GLORIES

It is almost winter here in Australia, so needed to make something that made me feel all summery today and this is it.

My version of KNICKERBOCKER GLORIES. A childhood favorite.

The pink and red one.

In a tall glass, I put some strawberries and raspberries in a raspberry sauce. Then on top of that a mixed berry mouse. Next layer is a raspberry sorbet with more strawberries and raspberries around it. Topped with whipped cream, a raspberry and a stick of TIMEOUT. (A choc bar muched loved in this country)

Yellow, pink and red is...

Diced pear in a mango jelly, then mixed berry jelly, mixed berry mouse, raspberry sorbet, the whipped cream etc as before.

These are such fun to make and to eat, as my grand-daughter Iesha will tell you.