The Most Chocolaty Cheesecake

Hi Guys

It was the boys birthday on Monday and as is tradition I made him a cake. I like baking or at least attempting to as I think its much more personal even if it does end you costing me more then actually buying one.

This year the boy who isn't on the same wave length as me usually when it comes to cake asked for a chocolate cheese cake, so I was more then happy to oblige.  

I got the recipe from the BBC website and is from Gina Brooks as a White and Milk Chocolate Cheesecake but I changed it just to use milk chocolate. Here's the link to the original recipe.

Warning: This Cheese Cake is ridiculously chocolatey!!

This is what you need 

12 Chocolate Digestive Biscuits 

50g of Butter

1 tbsp Honey

500g of Mascarpone cheese

1 tbsp of icing sugar

300g of Milk Chocolate

Extra Chocolate for topping

Step One: Brake the biscuits into small crumbs, the best way to do this is to but them into a zip lock bag and bash them with a rolling pin.

Only 12 Biscuits!

Step Two: Melt the butter, I did it in the microwave being careful not to burn it. Add it to the biscuit crumbs with the Honey and mix well. 

Calorie Counting 

Step Three: Place the biscuit mixture into a round 7in chefs tin pressing down with the back of a spoon to make sure its firm. Place in fridge for a good half an hour. 

Step Four:  Melt the chocolate in the usual way with a glass bowl over boiling water being careful not to let the glass touch the water.

Lick The Spoon

Step Five: Add the melted chocolate to a mixing bowl with the Mascarpone cheese and Icing Sugar mixing well until the mixture becomes creamy smooth. I'm not going to lie to you I got the boy to mix this for me as god it was hard work so be prepared to use them muscles. 

Heaven

Step Six: Add the chocolate mixture to the biscuit base covering well and evenly. For the extra chocolate for the top I used a vegetable peeler to add in curls all over. Next put back in the fridge for a good few hours.  

Ta Dah

Step Seven: Serve and enjoy! Add a little ice cream on the side and if your feeling very chocolatey a little bit of sauce. 

Please let me know if you try my version of this recipe and what you think as even I struggled with how chocolatey it is.

Thanks for reading

Bread Is Not Your Friend

Hi guys

As my friends would know one of my favourite sayings in life is 'Bread is Not Your Friend' as someone once told me bread is almost impossible to digest for some people and I have a feeling I'm one of them people.
I try as much as possible not to eat bread and as I'm on a health kick I'm also trying to cut back on snacking particularly with chocolate. So on Friday when I was off work I was craving chocolate and thinking about baking cakes but I decided to go for a slightly healthier option and bake some bread.

I have tried this recipe a few times and it started life as a Hairy Bikers recipe from the BBC Food website, Which I must say has to be one of the best websites for recipes. You can check out the original recipe here but this is how I do it.

You will need

Ingredients

500g Strong White Bread Flour

1tps of Salt

30g of Butter

75ml of Milk

2tps of Dried Yeast

225ml of warm Water

To start place the flour into a large mixing, add the salt and yeast mixing it in well.

Add the butter to the mixture in small chunks making sure that it is softened to make life easier. Mix by rubbing the butter and flour mixture between your figures and thumb like your would make bread crumbs. The mixture should resemble bread crumbs but not as wet or rough. 

Step Two

Next add the warm milk and water bit by bit mixing with your thumbs and fingers until it resembles something like this. A tip to make this slightly less mess is to only use your fingers and thump to mix at this stage trying not to get any mixture on the palms of your hands. To remove any sticky bits once your happy its mixed well is to rub your hands with a very small piece of dough your not planning on using. 

Flour a hard flat surface and need the dough with the palms of your hands folding it over as you work it for at least 20 mins. You are looking for the dough to become smooth and elasticated, if you need to when your working the dough you can add a little more flour if you feel it is to wet but be very careful not to over do it.  

Step Three & Four

Now that's the hard work done, you need to leave the dough in the bowl and cover with either a damp tea tower of cling film. I use cling film and leave for around an hour and a half until the dough has doubled in size.   It should look something like this.

Step Five

This is when you can separate the dough into your eight rolls and I cut the top to add a little extra crispness. Next cover the rolls again like you did before with cling film or a damp towel and leave for an hour.

Step Six

This is what you should end up with, don't worry about them being perfect just make sure they have enough space in the tray or you will end up with more tear and share.

Step Seven

To bake preheat the oven to 220C making sure its properly hot before you put the rolls in for 8-10mins. Make sure you keep an eye on them as within seconds they can burn but resist temptation to open the oven unless you think they are ready. 

Enjoy

And now with plenty of butter eat whilst still warm, any that you are not planing to eat immediately place onto a wire rack to cool down and enjoy.

Tuck In

I love making bread there is something very therapeutic about it, plus if I am trying to force myself to stay in on a day off and to not spend any money you can pick up most of the ingredients very cheaply. There is also something very satisfying about making bread, working hard to need the dough and getting to enjoy your hard work.

Thanks for reading I hope you get chance to try this for yourself