referring to a declaration I made a little over a year ago. Number 8 in fact.
I made a rainbow cake, not the style of rainbow cake I had planned to make a year or so ago but an easier one both to make and to consume. I used the butter cake recipe from *that birthday cake book*, doubled it, split it in to a number of bowls, added a liberal amount of food dye to each bowl, stirred that food dye in very well, dolloped it into a bundt pan, baked it, covered it in yummy chocolate ganache (the secret to shiny ganache is a little dollop of a plain veggie oil) and then sprinkled gold sugar over the top.
It was well, it was smile material.
In progress shot.
One of the girls at work is a day younger than me, so to celebrate our birthdays we made each other a cake. Oh it was a day of cake last Monday at work.
This is the oh so so so yummy double layer chocolate cake she made me.
mmm rainbow cake.
For my birthday at work I had a few requests for the cheesecake I had made before for other birthdays. Yes I am blogging about my birthday oh almost a month after it. Oh it was so delightful.
This is the photo of the wind. I had the photo all planned out in my head. My cake stand on an upturned vase covered by a scarf. It all looked so good through the lens and then as I pressed my finger on the shutter, the wind lifted up the scarf and the cake stand went over the balcony, the cake went onto the table and I just sighed. After nipping down stairs to pick up the broken cake stand, I took the photo again in a slightly more simple manner.
The recipe is almost exactly the same as the cheesecake recipe I have posted before but I added a tin of caramel (either Top’n'Fill or Caramel or a tin of condensed milk converted to caramel)
Caramel Chocolate Baked Cheesecake
Crumb Base
1 250g packet scotch fingers
bit of all spice
50g butter/marg
50g copha
2 tbsps or so of cocoa if desired
Melt the butter/marg and copha together.
Crumb scotch fingers till they resemble fine breadcrumbs. Stir through the all spice and cocoa if using. Stir in the melted fat mixture. The mixture of dairy and vegetable fat is used to give a better “crumb” and how it holds together. Press in to the bottom (and sides if desired) of a greased 20cm spring form pan (line the bottom with foil) and chill in the fridge whilst making the filling.
Filling
500g cream cheese
1 x 380g tin caramel
bit of lemon juice
bit of vanilla
4 eggs
2/3C sugar
Cream the cream cheese and caramel till smooth. Add in the vanilla and lemon juice. Beat in the sugar till smooth and then beat in eggs one at a time till mixture is smooth. Pour on top of the base and cook in 160deg oven for 40 mins or until cooked. Run knife round edge of spring form pan and cool overnight.
Topping
idea very loved from Smitten Kitchen
50g butter
100g+ chocolate – dark or Cadbury Energy or Lindt 70% etc – Mix it up with a few different chocolates, increase the flavour or use up those half used blocks…
2 tsp honey
You could also very easily add some flavours here such as peppermint extract, mmmm.
Melt all ingredients together in a bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Pour over top of cooled cheesecake and place in fridge for 30mins to set the chocolate topping.
When cutting this cake (due to the chocolate topping) if you want a clean cut you must dip the knife in a glass of hot water after each and every cut.
Enjoy!