Cheesy Cake

This is one of the first cakes I ever learnt to make and making it always gives me a whole lot of joy..

You'll need:

1. 250 g of Cottage Cheese (paneer)
2. 1 Tin condensed milk ( Milk maid)
3. 1 Lemon
4. Ginger Nut Biscuit
5. Mixer / Blender
6. A Big Cake Tin
7. Butter
8. Jam / Preserve / Jelly

Okay all you have to do now to make a cheesy cake is:

1. Take the Big Cake Tin and grease the inside of the tin with Butter
   
2. Melt some Butter in a small bowl.
   
3. Now take about 3-4 Ginger Nut Biscuits depending on the size of the vessel and powder them. It is completely okay if you don't powder them fine, for one i love my base a little chunky. Now if  you don't get Ginger Nut Biscuit don't break your head over it because you could use some Marie Biscuits but the Ginger Nut Biscuits are preferable as they do well in balancing the sweetness of the cake.
   
4. Now mix the melted butter and the Powdered biscuits. Be careful the butter will  be hot. Mix well and paste the mixture evenly on the bottom of your tin. Now the base is ready, refrigerate it for about 30 minutes, so that the base sets.
   
5. Now the cheesy bit, cut the Cottage Cheese into small bits and put them into your mixer / blender, now pour a little condensed milk into the mixer/ blender and blend it. Add some more condensed milk to the mixture once its a little course and blend till thick, creamy and evenly consistent, there should be no lumps of cottage cheese. If your mixer is small you may have to repeat this step a few times.
   
6. Now scoop out the cottage cheese and condensed milk mixture into a bowl and add some lemon juice as per taste and some lemon rind  and mix it well. Now empty this mixture on to the base, which by now would be well set, and spread evenly and refrigerate this for about 30 minutes.
   
7. Finally to heat your favourite flavoured jam / preserve immerse the jam / preserve bottle in a vessel filled with water. This method of heating is essential otherwise the jam will either become too sweet or will just get burnt. Now pour and evenly spread out the heated jam / preserve on the cake sitting in the tin in your fridge and put it back to cool. You could substitute the jam with jelly if you like, what you do is prepare the jelly and while molten pour it out evenly over the cake and let it cool.

This is one of the easiest cheese cake recipes there is and the beauty of it is you can use any flavoured jam / preserve / jelly you like. I love a strawberry, blueberry and lemon cheese cake and mango, orange, chocolate, jelly are worth a try. It is a great crowd pleaser and is a quick fix option when you have guests over and need to fix a dessert. I personally love bonding with friends over coffee, cheese cake and conversation...

Happy cooking!!

For the Sweet Tooth

Hi guys,

Its been a long time since i have posted something new on the blog, but it was vacation season and I have been out and partying and learning a lot of new things while at it. I learnt how to polish off a bottle of tequila with buddies, how to shake a leg and most importantly how to bake a stupendous chocolate cake..

All you'll need:

1. 3 Eggs
2. 100 g  Dark Chocolate
3. 50 g    Plain Flour
4. 100g   Castor Sugar
5. Some Fresh Mint
6. 100 g  Unsalted Butter
7. Some Cocoa Powder
8. 6 Aluminium Pudding Tins
9. 2 Bowls
10. 1 Baking Tray
11. Hand Held Mixer
12. Knife

This is pretty simple, all you need to do now is follow a few simple steps and voila! In 20 minutes you'd have a really tasty and light chocolate cake.

1.  Pre-heat the oven at 180 degrees C for about 5 minutes.
   
   
2.  Brush the insides of your pudding tins with soft butter and then spoon in some cocoa powder. Turn the tin in a circular motion and tap it untill the inside surface is fully covered with cocoa powder.
   
3.  Now that the tins are prepared, place chocolate and butter in a double boiler or if you don't have a double boiler then in a heat proof bowl and place it over a pan of boiling water. Leave the butter and chocolate to melt.
   
4.  Beat the eggs and slowly incorporate the sugar. Mix until airy and fluffy.
   
5.  Sieve the flour into the melted butter-chocolate mixture and mix the flour till no crumbs are seen.
   
6.  Now pour the Chocolate-Butter-Flour mixture into the bowl with the Egg- Sugar mixture so that they are in the same bowl. Now mix them really well.
   
7.  Once you have mixed all the ingredients well, pour them into the prepared aluminium tins and place the tins on the baking dish and bake them for 10 mins at 160 degrees C. 

Serves 5-10 people depending on the size of your pudding tins. I use the big tins and generally get 4 or something.

I really hope this fluffy chocolate cake appeals to your sweet tooth, and for those of you who are fans of chocolate lava, bake the cake for 5-6 mins instead of 10 mins to have some chocolate oozing out of your cake.

Happy baking!!