Mocha Cheesecake

What was meant as a Chocolate cheesecake turned out to be a Mocha Cheesecake instead. The recipe asked for a minute amount of instant coffee to heighten the chocolate flavour but it resulted in a mocha-ish flavour instead. 

When I first tasted the cheesecake batter, I was rather disappointed by the mild chocolate flavour. It was nowhere near the richness that I have envisioned. Little did I expect that the cheesecake turned out to be rich and chocolatey with a prominent coffee aroma after the cheesecake was baked and chilled. Lesson learnt. You can never be too sure how your bakes will turn out.

Texture-wise, it was a deviation from the usual dense cheesecake which I preferred. Based on previous experience, chocolate cheesecakes seem to set more as compared to non-chocolate ones. Hence I shortened the baking time for fear that the cheesecake might overset and become rock hard. The result was a gooey-creamy softly set cheesecake instead of being dense, which was a delightful change from the norm. Had it been a non-chocolate cheesecake, the baking time would be insufficient and the cheesecake would not have set properly.

Mocha Cheesecake:  Recipe adapted from Cheese Cake with Kevin Chai
Serving size: 10-12 slices
Taste and texture: Gooey and creamy with a rich mocha flavour.
Equipment and materials:
1) Stand electric beater/ handheld electric beater
2) Food processor/ rolling pin
3) Measuring spoon set
4) Spatula
5) Mixing bowls
6) Wire rack
7) 7 inch springform tin
8) Baking tray larger than springform tin
9) Aluminium foil

Biscuit base:
130g Oreo cookies, finely ground (cream filling removed)
60g melted butter
1 tbs brown sugar

Cheesecake filling:
500g cream cheese, softened
100g castor sugar
1 1/2 tbs cocoa powder
2 tsp instant coffee powder
150ml whipping cream
3 eggs, lightly beaten
160g dark chocolate, melted and cooled (I used 55% dark chocolate)

Method:
Making the base: Prepare biscuit base as mentioned in Preparing a Cheesecake Tin. Freeze prepared base for 10 minutes or until ready for use. Alternatively, bake the base at 180 degrees C for 10 minutes and allow to cool.

Preparing the oven: Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.

Preparing cheesecake filling: Beat cream cheese, sugar, cocoa and coffee powder untill creamy on medium speed.  Beat in the eggs at low speed, one at a time until incorporated.

Next, stir in whipping cream. Finally, fold in the melted chocolate to obtain a smooth batter.

Baking the cheesecake: Pour filling onto biscuit base. Wrap top and sides of spring form tin with aluminium foil as mentioned in Preparing a Cheesecake Tin. Bake at 170 degrees C for 45-60 minutes in a water bath. The filling should be set near the edges but most of the centre region is still jiggly. The cheesecake will continue to set when cooled.

Cooling the cheesecake: When baked, allow cheesecake to cool in the oven with oven door ajar for 30 minutes. Remove the tin from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack. Place cooled cheesecake tin in the refrigerator and chill for 4-6 hours. Dislodge chilled cheesecake from cheesecake tin.

Notes:
1) To slice cheesecake nicely, wipe the knife after each slice with kitchen towel/s.
2) To smooth the sides of the cheesecake, dip a knife in hot water. Wipe the knife dry and run it around the perimeter of the cheesecake. Repeat the step if necessary.
3) Bake the cheesecake for a further 30 minutes to obtain a denser cheesecake.
4) Flavour of cheesecake will continue to mature after 1-2 days of chilling.

Cake Project 4: Mission Tiramisu and a special day of a lifetime, 20/10/2010

You might be wondering whats with the date 20/10/2010. It marks my 26th birthday and the date conincidentally forms a unique number sequence, 20102010, which is rare to come by. For this very special occasion, I promised to treat myself to a luscious layer cake. Hmm.. sounds a bit weird huh? Poor Bakertan has to resort to baking his very own birthday cake. Well, I would prefer a home-made birthday cake anytime. Firstly, I get to customize the texture and flavour to my liking and secondly, its going to be another enjoyable experimental layer cake session/lesson/therapy at home.   

I scratched my head pretty hard trying to decide the flavour. Was wondering whether I should make a blackforest cake, a tiramisu or a durian mousse cake. After some considerations, I opted for the tiramisu. It has been quite a while since I helped myself to one and I was certainly looking forward to a nice turnout.

So last friday, I stepped forth and tried my hands at making tiramisu for the first time. Instead of using saviordi fingers (lady fingers), I decided to make it a tiramisu torte by using coffee sponge cake layers. The first attempt on making the tiramisu mousse was a complete disaster. The steps were tedious and there were plenty of room for errors.

The recipe had asked for warmed egg yolks (leave to cool) and beaten egg whites. I might have overwarmed the egg yolks slightly, scrambling it a little (straining it might help, which I didn't) and the beaten egg whites turned out dry and clumpy (I used Swiss meringue method instead of the Italian meringue method). After mixing the yolks, beaten whites, mascarporne cheese and whipped cream, the mixtue curdled real badly. It taste good though but it was not going to do the job for sure.

You can imagine my morale and spirits dipping to an all-time low at that instance. I almost fell into despair thinking that I will be going cakeless the next day when my family will be celebrating for me in advance. At the same time, I hated the fact that I wasted my precious mascarporne cheese, a good 300g of it. Arghh!

At that moment, I was faced with a tough decision. Should I carry on or abandon the mission? My coffee sponge layers were sitting aside and drying out with every minute that passed by. Thanks to the encouraging words from my mum, I decided to re-attempt the mousse a second time using a different recipe and my remaining 200g of mascarporne cheese, minus the yolks and whites which were way too troublesome for me to handle.

Thankfully, the second attempt was a successful one. I made some coffee syrup and brushed it over the sponge layers to moisten them. Making the mousse the second time round was a familiar sight to me. The mousse consists of gelatin solution, whipped cream, mascarporne cheese, a little of the coffee syrup and a small amount of kahlua. Gently folded these components and they came together to form a nice smooth mousse. With the help of my cake/mousse ring, I managed to get my desired tiramisu torte cake with ease. Now that I learnt my lesson the hard way, there will be no more tiramisu mousse containing eggs in future! I actually brought trouble to myself trying to figure out how to make the eggs as safe for consumption as possible in the first attempt.

It was'nt all that bad after all. Despite the disaster with the mousse curdling at first, the silver lining was that the tiramisu turned out decent on the second attempt. What I liked best about the tiramisu was the sponge layers were moist due to the coffee syrup and the mousse firmed up well without being gelatinous. I will be adding more kahlua to give it a little more kick, increase the amount of mascarporne cheese and add more sugar in future. Will be posting the complete recipe in future when I am done with the fine-tuning.

I received a book from a friend today much to my pleasant surprise. Its a book I wanted to get but do not have much luck finding it =] Yay! This would make a nice addition to my mini-library of books.



Mocha Truffle Cookies

Hmm... Mocha Truffle Cookies.. Sounds exciting and delicious. That was the first impression i got when i was reading this recipe. What I liked about this recipe was that I had all the ingredients and did not have to run around to shop for other required ingredients.

Instead of following the recipe and dropping tablespoons of cookie dough, I dropped teaspoons of dough onto the baking tray. For the first batch, I baked them at 180 degrees C for 12 minutes. I then baked them for 7 minutes for the subsequent batches.

When I tasted the cookies, I got a surprise. The 1st batch of cookies turned out to be crisp and chewy. You could still see grains of brown sugar when you chew into the cookie. For the susequent batches, the texture was fudgey. After two days, I realised that the cookies tasted even better and the flavour has matured. There is this light coffee fragrance when you sniff the cookies.

I have problems taking pictures of chocolate confections. They always turn out to be a pile of dark brown mess. To make things worst, I have the tendency to bake in the evening. Under such lighting conditions, the pictures turn out to be disatrous. In order to take pictures of the cookies, I had to wait till morning when the lighting condition is brighter.

Mocha Truffle Cookies

55g butter
50g chocolate
1 tbsp instant coffee powder
130g plain flour
1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 egg, lightly beaten
90 caster sugar
60 brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
60 g chopped nuts

Method:
1) Preheat oven to 180 degrees C
2) Place a metal mixing bowl over a pan filled with water. Ensure that the base of the bowl do not come in contact with the base of the pan, use a suitable size pan to do so.
3) Melt butter, chocolate and the coffee powder over the pan. The steam from the water will heat up the mixing bowl and melt the contents. Stir to obtain a smooth mixture. Leave to cool slightly.
4) Sift flour, cocoa powder and baking powder together into a bowl. Add in eggs, both the caster sugar and brown sugar and the chocolate mixture obtained from 3). Mix well to form a dough. Lastly, incoporate the nuts to the dough.
5) Drop levelled tablespoonful of dough onto baking tray. Leave some space between each dough. Bake for 12 minutes. The dough should rise and puff up. Leave on wire rack to cool before storing in airtight container.

Things to note:
1) Vary baking time to get desired texture
2) Use an electric mixer to mix the sugar into the dough more evenly.