Blackberry, Lemon and Vanilla Cheesecake

J's favourite fruit is blackberries and he is always asking for a blackberry dessert. Luckily I had a large box of blackberries from my colleague's garden in the freezer. I've made numerous crumbles with them but this time I wanted to make something a little special. J also loves cheesecake hence this blackberry, lemon and vanilla cheesecake. The inspiration for this recipe was a lovely two layer cheesecake but unfortunately mine looks nothing like that! However, it tasted heavenly and that's what really counts. I made a vanilla layer using vanilla extract and vanilla bean paste and a blackberry & lemon layer. The blackberry layer was a little tart and paired perfectly with the sweeter vanilla layer. 

I'm sending this to  Four Seasons Food hosted by Louisa from Eat Your Veg and co hosted by Anneli from Delicieux. The theme this month is "getting fruity".

It also fits in to Shop Local hosted by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. This challenge was created to highlight produce from local sources. The blackberres in this recipe came from a colleague's garden. 

 digestive biscuit base 

  blackberry mix on the left and vanilla mix on the right 

 ready to go in the oven 

 after baking for about 25 minutes 

 adding vanilla mix on top which mostly sunk to the middle, pushing the blackberry layer to the outside 

 

Recipe adapted from ivillage.com
40g butter
300mls sour cream
18-20 digestive biscuits
900g cream cheese
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
220g caster sugar
180mls milk
4 eggs
360g frozen blackberries
zest and juice of 1 lemon

• Preheat the oven to 180C. 
• Melt the butter in the microwave or in a small saucepan.
• Blitz the digestive biscuits in a food processor and stir in the melted butter. 
• Press into the bottom of a lined 23cm springform tin making sure that the biscuits also go partway up the sides of the tin.
• Place in the fridge to chill whilst you make the filling. 
• Beat the cream cheese and sugar until combined. 
• Add in the milk then beat in the eggs, one at a time.
• Add in the sour cream and continue mixing until smooth.
• Divide the mixture evenly between 2 large bowls. 
• In a food processor, puree approximately 300g of the blackberries with the zest and juice of 1 lemon. Pour into 1 of the cream cheese mix and stir in the whole blackberries.
• In the 2nd cream cheese mix, add the vanilla extract and vanilla bean paste and mix well.
• Pour the blackberry filling on to the biscuit base and bake for approximately 25 minutes  (recipe said 10 minutes but even 25 minutes was not enough for me - it probably needs 35-40 minutes) 
• Remove the cheesecake from the oven and pour the vanilla filling on top.
• Return to the oven and continue baking for another hour or until the top is set.
• Chill in the fridge before serving. 

Banana and Berry Loaf

Apologies for the long absence, September has been a really busy month as I was away celebrating my birthday and moving house in between! I then got a bad chest infection/sore throat which meant no unpacking, no baking or blogging! Anyway I am just about back on my feet so I thought I'd share this recipe with you quickly. I baked this back in August before moving house as I had leftover ingredients to use up. It's a really quick and simple bake and tastes amazing!! I really loved the chocolate chunks with the berries and bananas. 

I'm sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge run by Elizabeth from Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary. This month it's guest hosted by Mireille from Chef Mireille's East West Realm. I used up leftover fruit and half a bag of chocolate chunks for this recipe.

Similarly it's suitable for Credit Crunch Munch hosted by Sarah from Maison Cupcake for Helen and Camilla.

It's also perfect for the Vegetable Palette hosted by Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen. The September challenge is purple and blues. The blueberries are blue but they look purple after baking! 

Finally to Four Seasons Food hosted by Louisa from Eat Your Veg and co hosted by Anneli from Delicieux. The theme this month is "getting fruity" and there's plenty of fruit in this!

 I like adding chunks of banana rather than completely mashing them up 

 adding sour cream 

 lovely fresh berries 

 leatherwood honey - a really fragrant solid honey from Australia 

 chocolate chunks for extra indulgence

 

An original recipe by bakingaddict 

220g flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
115g brown sugar
1 tablespoon Leatherwood honey
80mls vegetable oil
2 eggs
125mls sour cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 bananas, cut into large chunks
blueberries,raspberries and a handful of chocolate chunks (I forgot to weigh the berries but just throw in what you have)

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Whisk the sugar and vegetable oil together then add in the eggs and continue whisking. 
• Stir in the mashed bananas followed by the sour cream .
• Gently fold in the berries by hand.
• Add the flour and baking powder to the mixture.
• Stir in the honey.
• Mix briefly being sure not to overmix.
• Finally stir in the chocolate chunks and pour into a loaf tin. 
• Bake for approximately 50minutes - 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Check at 45 minutes as you will need to cover the top with foil if it's too brown. 

White chocolate and cardamom cake with rose, strawberry and yoghurt filling and a giveaway

One day I had the urge to bake a layer cake. I've been baking a lot of biscuits and small treats recently and I was craving cake. Proper cake. I was sent some spice drops from Holy Lama to review and I started thinking about how I could incorporate them in a cake. I chose flavours that I knew would pair well and came up with this recipe for white chocolate and cardamom cake with a rose, strawberry and yoghurt filling. I used my usual 'weigh your eggs' sponge method and added in cardamom spice drops, sour cream for extra lightness and chopped white chocolate as I was too lazy to melt the white chocolate. Plus it adds a different texture to the cake and everyone enjoyed the white chocolate bits.  I was initially going to fill the cake with a cream and mascarpone cheese filling but decided to use low fat greek yoghurt instead to cut back on the calories and preparation time. 

The spice drops come in a lovely box which clearly labels the spice. The spice drops themselves are easy to use as it has a pipette and it's easy to measure drop by drop. The cardamom flavour was strong in smell, taste and intensity. The box said that 1 drop ~ 1 cardamom pod so I used 10 drops. The rose spice drops smelt absolutely amazing and I used 5 drops for my filling which in hindsight was perhaps a little too much. These are a great alternative to grinding up spices and it's so easy to use. I can't wait to try the other flavours! 

The cake itself was very well received. The flavours worked really well together and visually it looked beautiful. The sponge was light and you can clearly taste the cardamom. The rose and strawberry filling was light and fragrant and helped cut through the 3 layers of cake. I'm glad I chose a yoghurt filling as a cream filling might have been too heavy but would definitely be indulgent. 

I'm sending this to Tea Time Treats hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Jane from The Hedge Combers. The theme this month is Floral so I hope the rose extract counts. 

As strawberries are in season, I'm also sending this to Simple and in Season hosted by Ren from RenBehan. 

This also fits in nicely with Celebration Cakes & Bakes hosted by Jenny from Mummy Makes Cakes.

I'm also sending it to Four Seasons Food guest hosted by Tina from the Spicy Pear this month. The challenge is usually run by Anneli from Delicieux and Louisa from Eat Your Veg. The theme this month is The Colour Red and there's a lot of red strawberries in this cake! The rose extract is colourless but roses make me think red too. 

It's also my entry to the Rix Aga Inspired Recipe competition where the theme is strawberries. 

I have a Baker's Spice Drop Kit to giveaway to 1 lucky reader which contains 

• Vanilla extract
• Cinnamon extract
• Cardamom extract
• Ginger extract
• Nutmeg extract

Terms and Conditions

Entry is via the rafflecopter widget below. 

This giveaway is open to all readers over 18 with a postal address in the UK.
Closing date is 14th July 2014 at 12 midnight GMT.
The winner will be chosen at random via Rafflecopter and will be contacted by email.
I am running this competition on behalf of Holy Lama Spice Drops who will be sending out the prize directly. By entering you are giving me permission to pass your email address on to them so they can contact you for delivery of the prize.
All entries will be checked and verified.

 white chocolate, self raising flour, caster sugar, cardamom spice drops, rose spice drops, eggs, fat free greek yoghurt, sour cream, strawberries 

 adding in the sour cream and cardamom spice drops (dark green) 

 adding in chopped white chocolate 

 For the filling - fat free greek yoghurt mixed with strawberry jam and rose extract 

 adding in the strawberry jam to the yoghurt 

 spread filling on top of the cake  

 add a layer of strawberries - I used the ends and smaller strawberries for this, reserving the rest for the top layer decoration 

 repeat with the next 2 layers 

 decorate with fresh strawberries on top 

 add a sprinkling of icing sugar 

 The cake held it's shape after a slice had been cut 

 delicious 3 layer cake 

An original recipe by bakingaddict

For the cake

weigh your eggs in their shells and use the same amount of butter, sugar, flour. My eggs weighed 265g (4 eggs) so my recipe is

265g butter

265g caster sugar

265g self raising flour

4 eggs weighing 265g in their shells

200g white chocolate, chopped

10 drops of cardamom spice drops (you can use 10 cardamom pods) 

150mls sour cream 

For the filling

500g fat free greek yoghurt

3 - 4 tablespoons strawberry jam (adjust to taste) 

5 drops of rose spice drops (you may want to use less - adjust to taste)

For the decoration

Fresh strawberries

Icing sugar for dusting 

• Preheat the oven to 170C.
• Grease and line 3 x 20cm sandwich tins.
• Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
• Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well between each addition.
• Stir in sour cream and cardamom spice drops.
• Add chopped white chocolate.
• Divide batter evenly into 3 cake tins (I weigh mine to make sure they are the same size)
• Bake for approximately 18-20 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
• Turn out on a wire rack and allow to cool completely before decorating. 
• To make the filling, stir the yoghurt in a bowl.
• Add in strawberry jam and rose extract and swirl it gently.
• Spread between the cake layers, adding a layer of fresh strawberries on top.
• Decorate the top with more strawberries and a dusting of icing sugar. 

Disclaimer: I was sent the spice drops for review. I was not required to write a positive review and all opinions expressed are my own. This is not a paid post. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Flourless Chocolate and Raspberry Brownies

I was looking for something quick and simple to bake one evening with J. I had limited baking equipment and supplies so I decided on a brownie which does not require any fancy equipment. I used a BBC Good Food recipe as the title said 'Best ever chocolate raspberry brownies' They were indeed amazing and it was so good I felt I had to make it again. 

This month's We Should Cocoa challenge hosted by Michelle from Utterly Scrummy Food for Families has the theme gluten free. I adapted this recipe by replacing the flour with ground almonds, reducing the amount of butter and sugar and baked it in my individual brownie pan. The result was really good. I was told that these are the 'best brownies ever' and there wasn't a crumb left by the end of the day. The  brownies are really moist, gooey and chocolatey with a hint of tart raspberry. Personally I prefer the normal version as it's smoother and fudgier. The gluten free version tasted grainier and nuttier due to the ground almonds. However, they were both delicious and I'd happily eat a few of each version! 

As mentioned, this is for We Should Cocoa started by Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog and guest hosted this month by Michelle from Utterly Scrummy Food for Families. The theme is gluten free. 

I'm also sending it to Four Seasons Food guest hosted by Tina from the Spicy Pear this month. The challenge is usually run by Anneli from Delicieux and Louisa from Eat Your Veg. The theme this month is The Colour Red and these raspberries are bright red!

And to Family Foodies hosted by Louisa from Eat Your Veg and Vanesther from Bangers and Mash. The theme this month is Barbecues, Picnics and Outdoor Eating. You can easily make the brownies in advance and they are very easy to transport.

 adding the eggs 

 adding ground almonds and cocoa powder 

 adding raspberries 

 place 1 raspberry on top of each brownie square before baking 

 

 look at how gooey the centre is ... yuuumm!!

Recipe adapted from BBC Good Food

Makes 18 individual brownie square as shown 

200g butter

350g soft brown sugar

200g dark chocolate

100g milk chocolate

4 eggs

50g cocoa powder

160g ground almonds

150g fresh raspberries

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Place the butter, sugar and chocolate in a medium sized saucepan and melt over a medium heat. 
• Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly
• Add in the eggs and mix well.
• Stir in the ground almonds and cocoa powder.
• Finally stir in the raspberries reserving 18 for decoration. 
• Divide the batter evenly into an individual brownie pan. Place 1 raspberry on top of each square before baking. 
• Alternatively you can use a square baking tray. 
• Bake for about 18 -20 minutes or until the edges are cooked. If you want a firmer brownie then cook for a further 5 minutes.
• Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out to a wire rack to cool completely.