Mojito anyone ?

Mojito cheesecake ... for the brother in law who loves his mojitos.

Sorry i haven't blogged in a while ... it's been a combo of moving house and the old weight watchers ... I'm actually going to the class now so i have to be really good !!

Heres the recipe ... all i'd say on this one is you don't really need to be a fan of mojitos ... but you do need a sweet tooth!And you need time ... it takes a while ... but it' not difficult ... the work is simple and quick it's just a waiting game ... I'd suggest that you bake this the day before and let it cool overnight.

Ingredients:

900g cream cheese

1.5 cups of sugar
3 tbsp flour
4 large eggs
1/4 cup of lime juice (i used bottled)
2 oz rum
5 oz evaporated milk
1 or 2 teaspoons of dried mint leaves (chopped finely)
115g mascapone
75g fromage frais
(the mascapone and fromage frais make a topping which could be left out if you felt that was too much)
a lime for decoration (optional)
digestives + butter for base (i cant remember the quantitiies - look on line for a base recipe)
Method: 

Preheat oven to 250degrees
crush your biscuits, and mix with melted butter, then press into tin
Mix together the cream cheese, sugar and flour until very smooth
Add eggs one at a time
Add rum, lime juice and condensed milk mix together well and add mint, stirring until evenly spread
Pour into prepared pan (i use a spring loaded tin)
Bake on 250 for 15 minutes and then turn down to 130 for a full hour
(I actually baked mine in my mums gas oven and the temperature was gas 8 and then needed to turn it down to 1/4 but my mums cooker doesn't go that low so i put it on gas mark 1)
Leave to cool completly nd then refrigerate before serving ... it's a bit of a long process ... 
To make the topping all you do is mix the mascapone and the fromage frais until really well combined and spread over the cooled cheesecake. 

chocca mocha caramel cake

This was a great cake ... not weight watchers ... but truly delicious ... I don't think i need say anything else ;)

Cake Ingredients:

1+1/2 tsp fresh ground coffee/ 2 tsp instant coffee
2 tbsp cocoa
175g butter, softened
175g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp golden syrup
200g self raising flour
4 tbsp milk
100g chocolate caramel bars (broken into pieces)

Icing:
100g chocolate caramel bar
50g butter
2 tbsp milk
100g icing sugar

Instructions ...

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
Line your cake tin
Mix the coffee, cocoa and 2 tablespoons of hot water into a smooth paste
Place all cake ingredients except the chocolate caramel bars into a large bowl (including coffee paste) and beat until smooth
Add the pieces of caramel bar and stir in
Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 50-60 minutes
Cool on a wire rack

For the icing:

Heat the caramel bar gently with the butter and milk until smooth (stir continuously)
Remove from the heat and stir in the icing sugar
Leave to cool then transfer to serving dish
Spread the icing over the cooled cake

And .... enjoy !! :)

roasted pepper and garlic fougasse and garlic and herb fougasse

Mmmm mmmm mmm ... I am loving this fougasse !! It's amazing and looks awesome to present to friends ... and whats more it looks like you've put a lot more effort into it than you have !! :) 

I got Tim to make the dough for me ... it's just the same dough recipe as before ... bread dough recipe

So here's what i did: roasted pepper and garlic fougasse

Ingredients:

1/2 ready prepared dough (see link above for recipe)
1/2 yellow pepper
1/2 red pepper
1 small spring onion
2 cloves of garlic
a few glugs of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon of oregano

Do this prep whilst your dough is rising.

chop the peppers to centimeter square pieces .... and dice the spring onions,
peel the garlic cloves and cut into 6 pieces,
put this in an oven dish and slow roast on about 150 degrees for 40 mins stirring half way through.

When your dough is ready take about half the pepper mix and knead into the dough ... then roll it out onto a lightly oiled tray and puch the rest of the pepper mix in with your fingers.

roasted pepper and garlic fougasse

garlic and herb fougasse

garlic and herb fougasse:

all you need for this one is...

1/2 of the prepared dough (as above)
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp of thyme
1 tsp marjoram
2 tsp worth of fresh basil leaves (ripped up with you hands)
1 tbs of grated cheese

It's very simple again ...

knead your herbs into the dough, and roll out onto a lightly oiled tray
chop your garlic cloves into small chunks and push them in across the dough
take very small ammounts of cheese and push them in as well

there you go it's ready for baking