I didn’t manage to bake anything new this weekend. Instead, I made Cordon Rose Cheesecake from The Cake Bible (my standard go-to cheesecake), then drizzled it with chocolate lacquer glaze, leftover from Zach’s La Bomba. It was my husband’s birthday yesterday, so he got to choose the cake. Happily, he’s getting around much better this weekend than he was a week ago, and he’s scheduled for physio tomorrow. We event managed to frame out a new garden shed this past weekend. Roof’s next!

Some of you may remember that my grandfather’s been having health issues off and on over the last year, and the doctors have finally made it known that he should be on a very-low-to-no-sodium diet. Congestive heart failure can apparently be mitigated by eliminating sodium. Who knew? Anyway, he’s been turning down food left and right because “nothing tastes very good”, so I thought this cheesecake might go down well. Well, Christmas morning, at about 9ish, we were about an hour from home, and I said to my husband, “I forgot the cheesecake.” He offered to drop me off at the farm (my grandparents’ home – adjacent farm to my uncle’s) and turn around and go home for it, but that just didn’t seem worth it. When we walked in at my uncle’s place, after I greeted my cousins and removed boots, etc, my husband asked my aunt if I’d told her my sad news. She looked quite concerned, and when I told her I’d forgotten the cheesecake, her face dropped. “I only stayed awake all night thinking about cranberry cheesecake.”

Oh well. Here it is, before I forgot it in the fridge.

Cranberry Crown Cheesecake

Now let’s talk about this week’s cake.

Chocolate Bulls Eyes

I’m going to make this mostly pictures, for a reason I’ll explain at the end of the post.

Mise en place

Whipped eggs, yolk & sugar

Folding in the flour & beurre noisette

Ready for the oven

Here’s where I stopped taking pictures. Syrup, apricot glaze, and chocolate custardy stuff didn’t seem terribly exciting, so I didn’t take any pictures of them. Actually, I just forgot. I left one of the cakes unglazed (though I did syrup it), for my husband, because I know he’s not terribly fond of apricot. He’d probably happily eat it, but I think he’d prefer it without, so I thought I’d try it. I haven’t gotten feedback yet, but if he has anything interesting to say I’ll share the feedback. You can see that one in the upper left corner here.

Chocolate Bulls Eyes

I took one of these to work today, and while I definitely enjoyed it, I wasn’t sure about the texture. It was almost gummy to me (difficult to get a piece off with a spoon), though I may have gotten the consistency of the apricot glaze wrong. It sure tasted good, though!

Now, what I was doing while I could have been writing up a more extensive post. Rose recently shared some of her early baking experiences on her blog. I spent some time the last day or two thinking about a reply. I’ll cross-post the result here:

I can’t say I had too many spectacular failures early in my baking career. I suspect that had a lot to do with my mother, who has a degree in home ec, and used to teach math. Of course, there was that one anniversary cake for my parents that my sister and I tried to make with caramel frosting, when there wasn’t enough powdered sugar in the house to thicken it properly, and it soaked right through the cake. Dad claimed it was delicious, but we knew he was just being nice.

Because of my Mom, I learned fractions, addition, multiplication and division in the kitchen, baking.

I was introduced to the Cake Bible by my supervisor for my Master’s thesis. It was an MMath at the University of Waterloo, in the School of Computer Science. The scientific approach in your books truly appeals to the geek in me, Rose. I suspect the same can be said for many, including my supervisor. I love the “Understanding” sections in your “Bibles”, and it’s been a real joy to bake my way through Rose’s Heavenly Cakes with other bakers from around the world.

My husband gave me the Pie and Pastry Bible for Christmas, and the gift couldn’t have been more well-received.

Aren't they cute?

The first step was to make the gingerbread cookies for the crust and the decorations.

Gingerbread Cookie Mise en Place

I don’t remember the order involved, but once that dough is mixed up, it looks something like this.

Gingerbread Cookie Dough

I let the dough chill out in the fridge overnight, then baked the cookies the next day.

Gingerbread cookies

Once I had enough little men and women to more than circle the ring of the cake, I used the rest of the dough to make squarish cookies to crumble for the crust. Speaking of crust…

Mise en Place for Cheesecake Crust

Cheesecake batter Mise en Place

The hardest part of the cheesecake batter was squeezing the juice out of the ginger. I found that my microplane grater actually got the ginger far too fine (it more or less pureed it, leaving nothing of substance to squeeze), so I used the smaller of our two options for grating cheese. That worked a lot better.

Once the batter’s mixed up, you pour it into your prepared crust. Like all of Rose’s cheesecakes, I do mine in a round cake pan, not a springform. If I grease the bottom of the pan with shortening, line it with parchment, wait until it’s completely set to unmold it, loosen it with a small metal spatula, then warm the bottom of the pan over a low flame before unmolding, I’ve never had one stick. On the other hand, I’ve had nothing but problems when I use springform pans… so I don’t.

Batter and crust

I’m told the finished product went over pretty well at my husband’s potluck at work. There was one small piece left, and I think it might have been saved intentionally for me. I have to admit, this wasn’t my favourite cheesecake, but maybe I’m just not a big fan of fresh ginger. I love powdered ginger in my cookies, and a hint of ginger in a stir-fry, but the tang of the cheesecake didn’t really go well with the ginger juice in my mind. Everyone else apparently liked it, though, so I guess that’s what counts!

Completed Cheesecake

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake

I loved the chocolate covered strawberry cake. We had a couple of friends over for a campfire in our backyard, and they and my husband all seemed to like the individual components, but didn’t think they worked amazingly well together. They all thought the chocolate overwhelmed the strawberry, which I guess matches what many of the rest of the baking group said.

Coconut Cheesecake

Don’t mind the funny blotch. The condensation from the plastic wrap dripped and seems to have lightened it. I’m not a big fan of coconut, but I needed a cake the week it came up on the schedule, so I figured I might as well try it out. Why did I need a cake? Well, some of the people from our office in Virginia were up for a visit to our headquarters, and I’ve received a few complaints from one of them that no one ever breaks the build when he’s in the main office. We have a tradition that if someone checks in bad code, causing the overnight build to fail to compile, they buy doughnuts for the rest of dev. When I break the build, I bring homemade cupcakes or cake. That hasn’t happened in quite some time, but I regularly bring in the results of my cake baking escapades anyway. The Virginia guys are on the email list that I notify when I have something to share, so I figured I should bring in something just for them while they were in town. Everyone seemed to like it, and it disappeared quickly enough that I had to snag a piece and stash it in the fridge in the kitchen with a sticky note on it for the visitor who had complained, since he was in meetings all day and would have missed it otherwise!

I took one particular compliment from one of my co-workers. He’s recently moved to the other end of the building because we’re running out of space, so he didn’t quite make it to my cubicle before the cheesecake disappeared. He said “It’s ok. I really don’t like coconut, but I really like your cakes, so I thought maybe this would be the one that would change my mind about coconut.”

On a side note, I had a really hard time finding cream of coconut. Our liquor stores don’t sell anything non-alcoholic, and our grocery stores don’t sell anything alcoholic, so finding appropriate mixes for drinks is a challenge. I ended up buying coconut cream, and adding simple syrup to try to get it to something approaching what I thought cream of coconut might be like.

Today’s cake is the Génoise Rose, which I haven’t baked yet, but I might do that Wednesday afternoon, depending on available time. I hope Marie and the rest of the heavenly cake bakers will excuse my tardiness. We’re currently in the process of trying to gather up some quotes for kitchen cabinets, and we have 2 appointments on Wednesday with 2 different cabinet places, and a more detailed consultation tomorrow night with a third.

Kitchen’s back to “usable” space, now that the hole in the floor has been filled in.

Floor AND a new window!

Mise en Place for Custard Filling

Custard, ready to cook

Beaten Cream Cheese and sour cream, and cooled custard

Mise en Place for Italian Lemon Meringue

Bubbling sugar syrup

Folding it all together

Graham Cracker Crust

Full, right up to the top

Extra goes into a plastic tub for Jay to snack on

Finished Cheesecake

I have to admit, for a ‘no bake’ cheesecake, this was an awful lot of work, and even more dirty dishes. Was it worth it? In my opinion, absolutely. I think this cheesecake supplants the “Cordon Rose” cheesecake recipe from The Cake Bible as my favourite. The texture is so unbelievably light and fluffy. It’s a little bit of a challenge to serve because of that, but oh so worth it. Unsurprisingly, given that it has the word “cheesecake” in the title, Jay really enjoyed it too. I offered to make it for him for his birthday, but we were visiting my brother in law at the time, and it turned out that he’d made a different no-bake cheesecake before we got there. It was quite tasty in its own right, and if I want something quick and easy, I’ll definitely be calling and asking for his recipe. No offence to my big brother, but when it comes to taste, Rose’s recipe wins hands-down.

Baby Lemon Cheesecake

This recipe begins by making a biscuit, which acts as the crust for the cake. It amused me that in this case, the biscuit name is actually literal — bis (meaning twice) and cuit (meaning cooked). It’s baked once on its own, then goes into the oven again as the base of the cheesecake. I’m easily amused.

Mise en place for biscuit

For the biscuit, you basically beat egg yolks and sugar until very light and fluffy, mix in flour and vanilla, beat egg whites into a meringue, then fold the two together, spread into a sheet pan, and bake.

Baked Biscuit

Let that cool, which doesn’t take long because it’s so thin, then cut into rounds, about the size of the bottom of whatever you’re baking this in. I had leftovers, which I stashed in the freezer. Hopefully the texture won’t suffer too much.

Leftover biscuit

Once you’ve lined the bottoms of your molds, get the cheesecake batter ready: sour cream, cream cheese, lemon juice, and eggs. I halved the recipe, because my silicone cupcake liners are about half the size called for in the recipe. In retrospect, this is probably why they baked up much quicker than the recipe called for.

Mise en place for cheesecake

Pour the batter into the molds, then fill the outer pan with hot water for a water bath.

Into the oven we go

After baking, and when the cakes have had a chance to chill in the fridge, make the lemon curd. I didn’t take any good pictures of this process, so you’ll just have to use your imagination. Spread the lemon curd as evenly as you can on the cakes, then chill again for a couple of hours before attempting to unmold.

Finished Cheesecakes

Jay really enjoyed these, and as I said above — anything that hints of cheesecake isn’t allowed to leave the house, so his was the only feedback I got. He thought they might be better with a more solid crust, but I think that’s because the temptation with anything ‘cupcake’ size is to want to eat it with your fingers. These are just a bit messy for that. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing wrong with these, but they weren’t my favourite dessert ever or anything. They don’t contain nearly enough chocolate for that.

My American husband said I could put up the tree after Thanksgiving. He didn't say how long after.

Cookies & Sugar

Processed cookies

For my pan, because I hate springform, don’t have a silicone pan of the appropriate size to use as a leak guard, and know from experience that my foil wrapping techniques leave something to be desired, I used a regular 3″ tall 9″ round cake pan. With lots of parchment and some shortening, I’ve never had one stick.

Prepared Pan

Cookie & Pecan Crust

Simmering Pumpkin & Sugar

I know the yolks are a little small, but aren’t these eggs gorgeous? They’re fresh from my aunt’s hens. I count myself lucky.

Eggs & Cream Cheese

Steaming Pumpkin & Sugar

Water Bath

Ugh, what a mess. When Rose says 'large food processor', don't use this one.

The next day, after chilling overnight…

Warming the pan for easier release

Upside-down

Right-side up!

Plastic Wrap on Plate used for inverting.

Mise En Place for Caramel

Yes, I know that’s way too much bourbon. I misread and almost put in twice as much as the variation called for. Luckily I realized my mistake before it was mixed in and I was able to pour some of it off.

Finished Caramel

I suppose I should add our thoughts on the cake, at the very least. Jay really dislikes pumpkin and really doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth. He had seconds of this cake today, without any prodding. I think that’s all I need to say.