More Ginger, With a Sprinkling of Princess.

Before I post my ginger biscuit recipe I'd like to take a moment to plug my latest cosplay. :D

I've been working on my Ariel for a while and it's finally done!





















This is a picture with my friend Kerhys who is doing Snow White with me at October expo.

Understandably we're both pretty excited. :D I love how our outfits are looking. Ariel was my favourite princess as a child and I'm really pleased I've done her dress.

Anyway, on to the biscuits! But before I progress too far, allow me to say that I've had a little accident wih my camera... it's not working at the moment so I've had to take pictures on my phone instead, so I apologise for them being a little low-quality.

Ingredients:

• 170g butter
• 220g dark brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 60ml golden syrup
• 300g plain flour
• 2 tablespoons ground ginger
• 1tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons syrup from crystillised ginger

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and golden syrup until smooth.


Add the egg, making sure to beat it really well for a few minutes.


Combine the flour, ground ginger, baking powder and salt and add to the mix gradually, beating well between each addition.

Next add the stem ginger syrup and mix in well. Put the dough in the fridge and leave to chill for at least an hour, but I usually do it for more.

Once the dough has been sufficiently chilled, remove from the fridge and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Preheat the oven to 175C/Gas Mark 4. Use a spoon to make smallish balls of dough and flatten them out a little as you put them on the tray. Leave them to bake for 6-8 minutes, or until a deep amber brown.


Whenever I make biscuits I always do a test biscuit first. This is to see if the dough is ready, sometimes I find I need to add more flour if it spreads out too much, or stick it back in the fridge for a bit.

My test biscuit this time spread out rather a lot and was almost as big as my hand. My hands aren't very big, but I thought I'd show you a picture nonetheless.


Happy baking! These turned out delicious. I also added a pinch of cinnamon into mine for an extra kick, but I didn't include it in the ingredients list seeing as some people don't like cinnamon and it's not a necessary addition.

Enjoy!

Prophetic Dream Cheesecake

Mmmmm, dream cheesecake. Not just any dream cheesecake. Prophetic dream cheesecake. It's got to the stage in my life where my usual dreams of killer whales, sunshine and pirates have been interrupted by homemade confectionary creations elbowing their way into my mind.

I awoke on Sunday morning, the room bathed in a soft morning light, remembering my night-vision of making a cheesecake. It was a variated version of my signature strawberry and white chocolate creation, with a few significant differences. Firstly, and most notably, there were no strawberries to be seen. Which is unusual because whenever I make anything with a fruit in, I always default to strawberries. They're my favourite baking fruits, I love their strong, tangy, yet somehow very relaxing and still light taste. (They're also very versatile and I can somehow work them into most of my recipes without much difficulty.) However in my dream I had used blueberries, a fruit which I very rarely use in cooking. Instead of pulsing them and swirling them through the main body of the cheesecake, I made a coulis and used gelatine to set it in a sort of jelly on the top.

For some reason this cheesecake kept floating into my mind for the rest of the morning, plaguing my head like some kind of epiphany. I had to make this cheesecake. So, as soon as I got back home, I pelted to Tesco and invested in all my cheesecake making ingredients, and didn't vacate my kitchen until my cheesecake had been made.

Ingredients:

• 250g biscuits (I used chocolate chip cookies this time, but I also heartily recommend shortbread.)
  
• 75g butter
• 150g caster sugar
• 350g cream cheese
• 300ml double cream
• 1tsp vanilla extract
  
• 2 sachets gelatine (or 2 sheets leaf genatine)
• 200g white chocolate
• 100g blueberries
• 75ml water

Firstly, you'll need to make the base. Easily the mos efficient way of doing this is by plonking all the biscuits into a food processer and blending them until they're fine crumbs. However, if you don't have a food processer or are Amish, you can do this by hand. Put the biscuits into a plastic food bag and hit with a rolling pin until they're nicely crushes. This might sound rather prehistoric but I promise it's fun.

When the biscuits have been reduced to delicious crumbs, melt the butter and stir it in. Add 30g of the sugar too, and press into a cake tin. I used for this a nine inch round one. If it's much smaller it might not accomodate the recipe (my cheesecakes always tend to be a bit on the huge side) so be careful of that. Make sure the tin has been buttered and floured so when you come to remove the cheesecake you don't have any problems.

Whenever I line my base, I always raise the sides. I just think it makes a nicer effect when it's finished, but if you prefer the base to be the same thickness all the way across that's fine too.


Put the base into the fridge. Add the gelatine to a little cold water and put to one side to set. Now we get started on the fun part!

Break the chocolate into pieces and put into a saucepan with half the double cream. Melt over a low heat, stirring until smooth. Add the gelatine to the mixture now and stir until dissolved.

Put the cream cheese and 80g caster sugar into a bowl and beat until combined.


Whip the remaining double cream until it forms stiff peaks.


Add the cream to the cream cheese mixture and stir in gently. Gradually add this to the chocolate mixture in the pan, a spoonful at a time, beating gently until it is fully incorporated. This might take some time, as when beating it tends to look a bit lumpy and gross, as shown by this next picture:
But when it's all been stirred in successfully it should be lovely, creamy, smooth and tasty. I promise. Add the vanilla extract.


Get the tin out of the fridge and pour the mixture inside. Leave to set for about 3-4 hours.

To make the coulis, put the blueberries, water, and remaining (40g) caster sugar into a saucepan and heat over a low heat. Set the gelatine to one side in cold water again.


Leave to simmer until the juices from the blueberries begin to seep out and the sugar dissolves. Stir gently, cooking for about 10 minutes, and add the gelatine. Stir until dissolved.

When the coulis is cooked it should look like this:


Leave to cool slightly and add to your cheesecake. By now the tin is looking very full... carefully put it back in the fridge and leave to set for a few more hours, so the coulis jellies. I left mine overnight.

Carefully remove the cheesecake from the tin when it's all set.


Cut yourself a nice, thick wedge and settle down to enjoy it after your hard work. This has turned out to be a very successful prophetic dream indeed, I'll definitely store this recipe away in memory to make again.