Red Velvet Cheesecake for Valentine's Day

I spent my first Valentine's Day with my husband at his mother's house - our boiler had broken down and luckily we were able to move in with her for a week. It did mean that my planned Valentine's dinner got postponed to some extent - I had wanted to make a nice dessert but didn't really want to make a mess of her kitchen!

So I waited until the following weekend when we were back in our house where I could make as much mess as I wanted, and finally made my husband his Valentine's dessert. I had fancied making a red velvet cake as I don't think I'd ever made one before, then while searching for a recipe online found this Eric Lanlard recipe for a red velvet cheesecake. It's a cross between a cake and a dessert so great for after a meal or in the middle of the afternoon on a weekend with a cup of tea.. any time really!

This cake-cum-cheesecake is absolutely amazing. It was pretty easy to make and tasted so, so good - the creamy filling in the middle was much better than buttercream!

You can find the recipe on the Baking Mad website; the only part I didn't manage to do was the cream cheese frosting around the sides. I made my frosting following the recipe but it was far too runny, and also slightly yellow in colour rather than white; I decided that I actually preferred to leave the sides of the cake exposed so you can see the depth of the filling inside.

I levelled the cake and crumbled up the part I sliced off, and spread the top of the cake with whipped double cream and then sprinkled the cake crumbs over the top; I'm not really sure that made a lot of difference to the appearance, taste or texture, but it did mean the crumbs all rolled off when I ate a slice of cake!

Did you know that when you make red velvet cake, it's not exactly a chocolate cake but does have 2 tbsp. cocoa powder in the mixture?

And the red colour originally came from the way the cocoa powder reacted with the acidity of baking soda, buttermilk and a dash of vinegar. But these days the cocoa powder that is commonly sold doesn't have such an acidic Ph level so you won't get the same kind of red colour any more. So most of the time when you see red velvet cake the colour has come from food colouring - which is exactly what I did here.

Spooning the cake mixture into the tin and levelling the surface.... yum

The cake came out of the oven with a fair dome to the top and a couple of cracks but that doesn't matter as I was going to level it.

Making the filling was fairly easy though involved a few steps. First you beat together the cream cheese, sugar and lemon juice then dissolve the gelatine and mix that in. Finally whip some cream and fold that in.

Here's the levelled cake, sliced in half - there is definitely a red tinge to the chocolate!

 

The way to get the filling to set properly inside the cake is to place a large piece of clingfilm in the loose-bottomed cake tin you used to make the cake (when it is cold of course). Put the bottom layer of cake into the tin onto the clingfilm and thickly spread the cream cheese filling over the top. Place the other layer of cake on top and wrap the whole thing in the clingfilm by bringing the film over the top. Put in the fridge overnight.

Carefully lift the cake, still in the clingfilm, out of the tin and unwrap. You have a delicious looking cake with a very deep layer of cheesecake in the middle.

 

I spread some whipped cream over the top and sprinkled over the reserved cake crumbs as I mentioned before.

I decided it needed something else - having decided that I wasn't going to or couldn't do the cream cheese icing around the sides and on the top, so piped on rosettes of double cream all around the top.

It looks quite pretty I think!

The cake and cheesecake combo was absolutely delicious and definitely something I would make again - I might try in a different flavour next time!

I'm sharing this with We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette at Tin and Thyme.

I'm also sending it to Cook Blog Share, hosted by Kirsty at Hijacked by Twins.

 

Cake and Bake Show Masterclass: Eric Lanlard

I had high hopes for the Cake and Bake Show masterclass with Eric Lanlard, but my heart sank a little after I took another masterclass earlier that day (with Mike McCarey of Mike's Amazing Cakes) and realised that it wasn't actually  hands on and instead I would be watching a demonstration. I also wilted a little inside when I found out Eric was demonstrating how to make shortcrust pastry - I had expected something more fancy from the master patissiere. I also wasn't thrilled when I queued early enough (half an hour before it started) to make sure I would be in the front row this time, after not getting a very good view in the Mike McCarey masterclass, then three people pushed in at the last minute which meant I was relegated to the second row. Not off to the best start!

But I needn't have worried - I still had a good view, though I apologise for the quality of the photos, it was near-impossible to not have someone's head in the way from my *second row* position (I'm still annoyed about that!). While shortcrust pastry might sound simple, there are all sorts of tips and tricks you need to know, and it is such an important basic, forming the foundation of so many bakes, that it's imperative to get it just right.

Also, Eric Lanlard - who I knew very little about other than that he's French - turned out to be charming and very funny in person. He peppered his demonstration with anecdotes, including several about his cat - the moment that he declared his life revolved around baking and cats, I was hooked!

Eric described how when he started as a pastry chef - a fairly elevated profession who tend to look down on 'mere' bakers - he expected to be making things like croquembouche from the start, but instead was told to make basic pastry for the first six months. While Mary Berry would raise her eyebrows at using any shop bought pastry, Eric declared there are two kinds of pastry you are allowed to buy without shame - filo and puff. Both are really hard to make yourself and Eric confessed he has never made his own filo!

Eric prefers not to use a mixer when making pastry and said there is a "sexiness" about "getting your hands dirty" (swoon) - you do need to be able to feel the texture as you rub in the ingredients. And speaking of ingredients, "don't even think about using the M word" - margarine. For Eric, it has to be butter all the way.

I learnt some very useful tips like the fact that as baking powder is an active ingredient, and the only difference between plain flour and self-raising flour is added baking powder, if you leave self-raising in the cupboard for a long time the baking powder will die and your cake won't rise. Also, you shouldn't overwork your pastry dough as this will activate the gluten, which is what makes the pastry shrink.

Eric also had a lot to say about the merits of vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste - knowing how he feels about vanilla essence now, I wouldn't dare present him with anything using that or vanilla flavouring! He claims to be able to even smell the difference and compared vanilla flavouring to car air freshener (and worse).

When rolling out your pastry, make sure it is bigger than the dish you intend to line; if you stretch pastry to fit, it will shrink back as it cooks. You should place the pie tin straight on the oven shelf, not on a baking tray, to avoid the infamous soggy bottom.

Eric is a big fan of clingfilm and mentioned it several times; for instance lining a pastry case with greaseproof paper when you are baking blind can damage the pastry and he prefers to use food-grade clingfilm.

Eric spent an hour showing us exactly how to make shortcrust pastry dough and line a pie tin - the fact that it took a whole hour to cover that just goes to show how much is actually involved in making perfect pastry!