Cake twenty-two

Cheesecake Delice

The first time I had a slice of cheesecake was back in the 70’s in Britain, when I was there as a young student in some families in the suburbs of London as a paying guest, as we used to say. Then I tasted it again in Germany in the early 80's. It was a completely new taste to me. We didn’t use cheese for cakes, the nearest thing we had was our ricotta cheese which was a common ingredient in South Italian recipes. But the taste was totally different. Those were the years when the first cream cheeses like Philapdelphia or Dover were marketed in Italy and I remember I once made a cheesecake for my birthday soon after my return from Germany: I loved it but my friends found it a bit ‘unusual’.  

For some years I thought there was only one type of cheesecake, the classical recipe I’d say, with a base of biscuits and the chilled filling, but then I found out there was a complete hidden universe....  from the chilled to the baked ones, and I didn’t lose time to try each recipe, although my family didn’t sound so fond of them. My mum used to say: ‘Good’ but her voice couldn’t betray it was just to please me... So I couldn’t make cheesecakes very often until I had my own house. Now after many years my mum still doesn’t like them much but my children love them and I feel free to experiment them all! 

This is a a baked cheesecake with some Mars bars inside and rasberries on top, a real delicacy!

Song: ‘Don’t let me down’

Try this cake, it’ll never let you down!

see recipe: 
http://time-for-cake-making.blogspot.it/2013/04/cake-twenty-two-cheesecake-delice.html

Cake twenty

The king of cheesecakes

I’ve just come back from Belgium which I consider, no doubt, the kingdom of chocolate! I knew Belgian chocolate was world famous but I didn’t expect so many shops and such a variety of chocolates. It was like walking in streets of chocolate with shopwindows full of pralines, chocolate fountains and chocolate statues. Once you went into a shop, you were practically lost! You could hardly resist tasting a small chocolate and you found yourself dreaming to eat them all.. In a few days you felt like addicted to chocolate! 

This is not a Belgian cake but the combination of the delicious chocolate bottom and the yummy soft cheese mixture makes it in my opinion the best of cheesecakes.. 

So I’d love to dedicate this cheesecake ‘the king of cheesecakes’ to Belgium, the kingdom of chocolate. A bit like giving a king his kingdom!

Song: Lucy in the sky with diamonds

Picture yourself in a chocolate street with chocolate trees and marmalade skies...

see recipe:
http://time-for-cake-making.blogspot.it/2013/03/cake-twenty-king-of-cheesecakes.html

Cake fifteen

Early Autumn Cheesecake

Fruitcakes are mostly seasonal even though we may find nearly all fruits the whole year round. Personally I don’t like eating oranges in the middle of the Summer or peaches in Winter, it might be a matter of habit but I think it’s more a matter of colours and psychological influence. Bright colours like the red of strawberries, the yellow of peaches and apricots, the purple of plums or of wild berries are more Summer colours, or colours we associate with warm countries. We also use them for clothes or home accessories in the warm season. Then suddenly when the colder months come, we prefer paler colours or all the shades of orange; so here come grapes at the end of the Summer, pears, persimmons and finally oranges.

So this cake sounds for me like the end of the Summer, when days are still warm but much shorter and pave the way to Autumn: yellow for the grapes, pale brown for the meringue and white for the cheese. 

Do I have overanalyzed it all? Maybe there’s nothing more to intend than what it actually is!

Song: A glass onion

Do we always have to look for deeper messages, can’t we simply accept reality as it is?

for the recipe follow me on: http://time-for-cake-making.blogspot.it/2012/11/cake-fifteen-early-autumn-cheesecake.html