Piña Colada Cheesecake & Bricoreposteria

For all you Spanish, cake-decorating, baking addicts whether you are a novice or amateur cake decorator or baker, I thouroughly reccommend a new(ish) specialist magazine, Bricoreposteria, packed full of cake decorating ideas and detailed step-by-step instructions and photos telling you how to recreate the featured cakes, advice and explainations about different caking tools, icing nozzles etc and recipes of how to make your own edible glue, fondant etc. It comes out bimonthly and costs 4.95Euros...my only complaint is that it is quite hard to find at my local newsagents, which means that I´ve missed out on a couple of issues.

I haven´t got around to tackling one of the bigger or more difficult projects yet.However, I have made the following, simpler Piña Colada cheesecake, taken from the latest issue (No.6)


Here´s a slightly adapted version of the recipe taken from Bricoreposteria:

Ingredients
100g digestive biscuits (I used oaty ones!)
50g unsalted butter
2 coconut yoghurts
250g mascarpone
227g tin of pineapple
100g dessicated coconut*
50g sugar
6 gelatine sheets (you could substitute this for powdered gelatine sachets)
yellow food colouring (optional)

Method
1. Blast the digestive biscuits in a food processor(great time saver!) and melt the butter in a pan over a low heat, then add melted butter to biscuits and mix, till biscuit crumbs start to hold together.
2. Press biscuit mixture into dish and place in fridge.
3. Place 4 gelatine sheets in a little warm water (here is where I got ahead of myself and made a slight both by placing all gelatine sheets in water and then consequently in cheesecake mix but in the end,it wasn´t a big deal and the cake still turned out pretty tasty!) and warm one coconut yoghurt in a glass bowl over a pan of simmering water, then add warm yoghurt to gelatine sheets and stir till gelatine dissolves completely.
4. Add the other yoghurt, the mascarpone, the sugar and the dessicated coconut and mix till well combined, then spoon over the biscuit base and put in fridge while you prepare the pineapple part.
5. Separate the juice/ syrup from the pineapple and heat the juice in a pan or in the microwave, add the remaining gelatine and mix till dissolved.
6. Blast the pineapple & gelatine & pineapple juice in a food processor and add a couple of drops of yellow food colouring if desired and place on top of cheesecake.
7. Leave in fridge for 4 hours or until cheesecake has set.

* As I´m not that fond of coconut, I would reduce the amount of dessicated coconut to 50g next time I make this cake or maybe even leave it out all together as I found it very coconutty tasting,plus the dessicated coconut gives it a very grainy texture, which I didn´t find that pleasant.
* Another adaption I might make next time is try making it with fresh pineapple and soak it in rum...then it would truly be a Piña Colada Cheesecake!

Roald Dahl & Food: Memories with Food at Gipsy House

I´ve always been a bit of a bookworm and enjoyed flicking through cookbooks and as I don´t have my cookbooks at hand and there is a large collection of cookbooks at the Carnegie Library(there´s even a foodie bookclub!)I decided to browse some of their collection. As I´ve been a big fan of Roald Dahl since I was a child,when I came across this book, I just had to read it!

This book is more than just a cookbook. It is full of anecdotes and memories contributed by Roald Dahl´s family and friends about their times at Gipsy House and you learn a lot about the famous author and his family. One of the most interesting facts in the book is that Roald Dahl is related to William Wallace as William Wallace´s family fled to Norway(Roald Dahl´s parents are Norwegian). The book is illustrated with beautiful colour photographs by Jan Baldwin and some drawings by Quentin Blake, who illustrated Roald Dahl´s books. The recipes themselves sound delicious and some are very innovative and unusual such as the Rose Petal Sherbet or the Krokaan Ice Cream while at the same time including some of the traditional and popular recipes of all cookbooks eg. Onion Soup, Thai Chicken or Oxtail Stew. Unfortunately, I haven´t got around to trying any of the recipes out yet so don´t know how successful it´d be when following them! The book is divided into the usual catergories: First Courses, Main courses, Vegetables and Salads, Puddings, Preserves and Cordials, Scones and Biscuits but also includes other sections such as Wine at Gipsy House and one very interesting section is The Hangman´s Suppers in which famous people state what they´d eat as a last supper if they were to be hanged the following day.

This is a delightful and interesting book and a must for any Roald Dahl fan and I´d definitely recommend it.