Buttermilk and Honey Cheesecake

I am addicted to the Great British Baking Show (at least the earlier versions), and this recipe is inspired by prior co-host Mary Berry. The show also persuaded me to get a Slide-and-Hide oven for the Irish cottage. It’s a big surprise when the door slides out of your hands and sneaks under the oven, when you’re least expecting it!

As you can see, this recipe makes a relatively small (but thick!) cheesecake, which is fine unless you’re serving it to a dozen people over the holidays.

Buttermilk and Honey Cheesecake

1 8-inch round springmold pan with a removable base

Ingredients:

Mary suggested using sponge cake for the base. Me, I’m partial to a graham cracker crust, or in this case, a combination of graham cracker crumbs and finely chopped almonds. Held together by butter, of course. It’s easy to make.

Crust:

3/4 cup fine graham cracker crumbs

3/4 cup finely ground blanched almonds 
1/4 cup melted butter

Combine the crumbs and the butter and mix. Press into the bottom of the pan.

Cheesecake filling:

8 oz. (1/2 pound) full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature

3 large eggs, separated

3 oz. sugar

2 Tblsp clear honey 

2 oz ground almonds (these should be finely ground)

1-1/2 oz. plain flour

1/2 pint buttermilk

Flaked almonds for garnish (optional)

Topping:

1 cup sour cream

2 Tblsp sugar

1/2 tsp almond extract

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease the sides of the baking tin.

Place the cream cheese in a large bowl and beat until soft. Beat in the egg yolks along with 1 oz. of the sugar, the honey, the ground almonds, the flour, and the buttermilk (all at once).

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff, then whisk in the rest of the sugar. Fold the whipped eggs into the cheese mixture. Spoon the combined mixture into the pan, on top of the crust layer.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 75 minutes or until the filling is firm but still spongy.

Mix the topping ingredients together, then spoon the mixture over the top of the cheesecake, and return it to the oven for about ten minutes. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool.

When it is cool, remove it carefully from the baking pan (slide a small rounded knife around the edge to loosen it) and slide it onto a serving plate.

Mary’s recipe called for sliced almonds sprinkled over the top—but I had other ideas!I decided that since it’s nearly Christmas, I’d garnish it with holly leaves (I just happen to have a holly tree out back) and some fresh cranberries for color.

And a holiday gift! The Lost Traveller will be the most recent book in the County Cork Mystery series, and will be released next month. I happen to have a few advance copies and I'm happy to share (don't worry--they don't change in editing). 

The book has received wonderful reviews so far, and I'll happily give all the credit to Ireland, which so many people fall in love with. Just leave a comment (with your email address) and I'll pick a winner next week. You'll have something to look forward to reading during your holiday! 

MAY YOUR HOLIDAYS BE WONDERFUL!

www.sheilaconnolly.com

White Chocolate and Ginger Cheesecake

I’ve told you before that I’m mildly addicted to The Great British Baking Show (which appears on our local PBS station at 7 p.m. every day, interspersed with Mary and Paul’s Master classes). I watch while making dinner and waiting for Jeopardy. I learn all sorts of interesting baking tips that I will probably never use.

But I can’t claim to have seen all the episodes, and I stumbled over an episode of M&P’s Master Class a week ago, when Mary made a White Chocolate and Ginger Cheesecake (for Christmas, in her version). I was in love! And (I argued with myself) it doesn’t have to be only for Christmas—just leave off the dark chocolate holly leaves she added.

Mary’s recipe is available online, and several other sources have similar ones—Nigella Lawson and Epicurious popped up first. Me, I mixed and matched. I love ginger, but I didn’t feel like pairing it with a chocolate crust, so I used gingersnaps for the crust.

A note about the ginger. I love the flavor of almost all forms—powdered, candied, preserved (and I use it freshly grated in various marinades and meat-based dished). But each of those will give a different flavor to whatever you’re making. Mary called what she used “preserved ginger” that came in a jar with syrup. My grandmother used to eat crystalized ginger like candy—that’s fresh ginger rolled in coarse sugar and kind of dried. Again, I tweaked the ingredient list: I had fresh ginger and I also had ginger syrup (which I ordered online), so I peeled and diced the ginger and marinated it for a couple of days (in the fridge) in some syrup. No matter which way you go, you want a little texture or even crunch in the ginger you use, which makes the cheesecake part more interesting.

Using white chocolate is an interesting variation for cheesecake, and I wanted to see how it turned out. So here it is!


WHITE CHOCOLATE AND GINGER CHEESECAKE a la Mary Berry

Once again I give you the full recipe for a standard-size cheesecake, but I made a smaller version for myself or I’d be eating it all week.

All the ingredients

Crust:

6-1/2 Tblsp. (3/4 stick) salted butter, melted and cooled (plus more for greasing the pan)
A box of gingersnap cookies (the box I had holds one pound)
2 Tblsp sugar
1 tsp ground ginger

Instructions:

Butter a 9-inch springform pan with 2-3/4 inch sides. Wrap the outside of the pan with heavy duty foil.

This is half a pound of crumbs. Fun to make!

Smash the cookies to crumbs with a heavy duty rolling pin (great for getting rid of your frustrations; or if you’re feeling calm, just do it in a food processor, but not too fine). Add the sugar and the ground ginger.

Crumbs plus dry ingredients

plus butter

and in the pan

Add the cooled butter and blend until clumpy. Press the mixture into the bottom of the pan and partway up the sides. Chill until you need it.


Filling:

Ingredients:

1 bag white chocolate chips
14 oz. full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature
5 fluid oz. sour cream
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground ginger
2/3 cup minced crystalized ginger, or use preserved ginger (in syrup)

Instructions:

Put the oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. 

Melted white chocolate (microwaved)

Melt the white chocolate in a double boiler (or if you’re brave, in your microwave, checking it regularly), stirring. Cool to lukewarm.

Using an electric mixer, in a large bowl beat the cream cheese and sour cream together until combined. Whisk in the eggs and vanilla extract, then stir in the melted white chocolate. Fold in the chopped ginger.

Ginger added

Pour the filling on top of the chilled base and smooth it with a palette knife.  Bake in the oven for 40-45 minutes, or until firm around the edge and just a little wiggly in the center.

Remove the cheesecake from the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes. Then run a small knife carefully around the inside edge of the pan. Let sit in the tin until it is completely cool, then chill it in the fridge.

Remove the outer ring from the pan and place the cheesecake on a serving plate (leave the metal base in place--makes it easier to cut).

You can decorate it any way you like. It will keep well for a couple of days in the fridge.

My mini-review: Since I used fresh ginger, the filling had a nice spicy aftertaste. If you like yours milder, try one of the other kinds. The white chocolate gave the filling a lovely smoothness. I might have overdone the amount of crust, but the recipe as a whole is very forgiving, so you can play with your proportions if you like less crust or more filling. Enjoy!

Coming in less than a month! The first in a new Victorian Village series!

The Victorian Barton mansion is the heart of the series, and the nearby town of Asheboro plays an important supporting role, as Kate Hamilton tries to revive a fading country town in Maryland. I keep finding such interesting things there (including a body or two)!

www.sheilaconnolly.com

A Really Big Scone

by Sheila Connolly

I mentioned recently that I’ve become addicted to the Great British Bake-Off (see my post here for Ginger Cake ), and I decided to order one of Mary Berry’s cookbooks, 100 Cakes and Bakes, so I could try my hand at some of the recipes. It’s a nice, small book. Each recipe fits on a single page, with a full-page picture of the (hoped-for) result opposite. It has a delightful range of traditional recipes, some of which I’d met only in books (for example, she provides one for Singin’ Hinnies, which I first encountered a few thousand years ago in Mary Stewart’s book, The Ivy Tree. I never expected to make them myself, but now I can if I want to).

Many of the recipes in the book are for sweets and desserts, but there are some nice savory ones as well. Since I was faced with a huge amount of ham left over from Christmas dinner, I decided to try something different: a scone with a lot of cheese. Not a cluster of cute little scones—one big one. It’s kind of fun, and it tastes good. 

Mary favors self-rising flour, which I don’t have, but you can make your own by adding baking powder and salt to regular flour. I just went straight to the flour/baking powder/salt combination. You (and Mary) can make the scone by hand, but I confess, I opted for my food processor, except for the final kneading step.


Mary Berry's Big Cheese Scone

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups flour

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp dry mustard
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 Tblsp baking powder
1 oz butter (1 fat pat)
8 oz (weight) cheddar cheese, grated (you can also mix your cheeses--I used a blend of cheddar and parmesan)
1 large egg
Whole milk

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Grease a baking sheet.

Place the flour, salt, mustard, cayenne and baking powder in the bowl of your food processor and pulse a few times to mix.

Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. 

Stir in half the grated cheese (pulse just a few times).

Break the egg into a measuring cup and add milk to make up 1/2 cup. Mix lightly, then add the liquid into the dry ingredients and pulse until they make a soft dough.

Turn out on a floured surface and knead lightly a few times, until the dough holds together. Shape it into a 6-inch circle. Place on the greased baking sheet and mark in sixths. Brush with a little milk and sprinkle with the rest of the cheese.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown and firm. Cool on a wire rack.

Eat ASAP! It’s best served warm.

A Turn for the Bad (County Cork Mystery #4) is coming out February 2nd! The story was more or less handed to me by my Skibbereen police source (who is a great guy, as well as a historian and genealogist), combined with a more recent event that filled in some of the blanks in the story. 

You may be surprised at what goes on along the coast of West Cork!

Available for pre-order at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

And if you happen to be in Maryland early next month, I'll be signing at Turn the Page Bookstore in Boonsboro, MD on Saturday, February 6th, between 12 and 2. If you don't already know, that's the store managed by Nora Roberts' husband. Turns out Nora Roberts has family from Cork, so I was invited. I'm gobsmacked: I get to sign alongside Nora Roberts!