Peach Melba Cheesecake for a summer party

 

 

Cheesecake seems to be my default dessert in the summer as it's light and creamy, and you can add all sorts of flavours - my husband prefers chocolate desserts but I don't want to cook with chocolate that much when the weather is hot!

Last weekend we went to his aunt and uncle's house for a family party and I was asked if I could make a dessert. Cheesecake is usually popular and easy to make, so I chose a peach melba cheesecake recipe from a book called Cheesecake by Hannah Miles.

I was buying the ingredients several days in advance and have found fresh raspberries go mouldy very quickly before, so decided to use tinned; I also had tinned peaches in the cupboard so decided to use those instead of fresh. Finally I decided not to make the glaze to go on top - so here's what I did.

for the base
300g malted milk biscuits
150g butter, melted
300g tin of raspberries in syrup, drained - reserve a few for the decoration

for the filling
4 sheets leaf gelatine
410g tin of peach slices in juice or syrup, drained
100g caster sugar
200g cream cheese
250g ricotta
150ml double cream

for the topping
half a 410g tin of peach slices in juice or syrup, drained
a few raspberries to decorate

I didn't make the glaze to go on the top partly due to lack of time but partly as I didn't think I fancied it - it looked like a thin layer of jelly essentially. If you want to find out how to do that part have a look at the book.

Crush the biscuits in a blender in a few batches.

Melt the butter in a small pan or in a microwave-proof bowl in the microwave and stir in the biscuits.

Press into the bottom of a loose-bottomed cake or tart tin, pressing some of the biscuit up the sides to form a crust. Spread the raspberries over the biscuit base.

Soften the gelatine leaves in a bowl of water for 5 minutes or according to pack instructions.

Meanwhile puree the peaches in a food processor and set aside.

Mix the sugar, cream cheese and ricotta in a large bowl until creamy.

Heat the cream in a small pan until it is just warm. Squeeze the water out of the gelatine leaves and stir into the cream, mixing until all the gelatine has dissolved. Whisk into the cheese mixture in the bowl and then fold in the peach puree.

Pour onto the prepared base and leave overnight in the fridge to set.

Just before you want to serve, decorate the top of the cheesecake with the peach slices and reserved raspberries.

This cheesecake was really light and creamy, with a nice flavour from the peaches and a burst of raspberry on the base. It disappeared quite quickly at our family lunch!

I'm sending this to Baking Crumbs hosted by Only Crumbs Remain
 and  CookBlogShare hosted by Glutarama

Homemade Peach Sherbert Ice Cream

Posted  on Caroline Makes.Net

After a very successful first use of my Kitchenaid ice cream maker with this triple chocolate ice cream, I decided to have another go and make something completely different. I had a punnet of peaches that I thought would work well in ice cream, and found a recipe in my Kitchenaid recipe book for 'minted mango sherbert'. It's called sherbert because it's not quite sorbet but not quite ice cream I think. I replaced the mango with peach and left out the chopped mint and the result was really good.

You need:
230g caster sugar
700ml whole milk
60ml cane sugar syrup - I used corn syrup which I bought in the US (I brought some back with me as I kept finding recipes that called for it) and it is referred to by this name elsewhere in the recipe so I think it's the right thing to use. A UK equivalent is usually golden syrup but I'm not sure how it would change this recipe!
punnet of fresh peaches, peeled, stone removed and diced
2 tbsp. fresh lime or lemon juice

In a medium saucepan heat the milk, sugar and corn syrup until very hot but not boiling, then remove from the heat and set aside.

Put the peaches and lime or lemon juice in a food processor and blend until smooth. Carefully stir in to the milk mixture then cover and chill for at least 8 hours.

Following the instructions I'd kept the bowl of my ice cream maker in the freezer overnight. Attach it to the kitchenaid and pour in the milk mixture while the mixer is on the slowest speed. Leave it stirring for 10-12 mins. I found the chocolate ice cream I made was lovely at this soft scoop consistency but this peach ice cream was a little runny; it's better served from the freezer and will keep in an airtight container.

 

I decided to serve this in cocktail glasses with a sprig of mint when I had friends over for a barbecue.

 

 

I'm sharing this with Bloggers Scream for Ice Cream, hosted by Kavey Eats, as the theme this month is fresh fruit.

Peaches and Cream Summer Sandcastle Cake

Copyright Caroline Makes dot Net

I bought a sandcastle cake mould from Lakeland two years ago and only used it once, when I made this pineapple and coconut sandcastle cake. The uncomfortably but beautifully hot weather we've had for the past week or so inspired me to dig it out again and to come up with another summery flavour for the cake. I decided not to decorate it as a lot of fondant or buttercream is not always a great idea in hot weather, and I wanted the natural colour of the cake to reflect the colour of the sandcastle.

I wanted the cake to be light and moist so decided to make it peaches and cream flavour. I used tinned peaches as I had some in the fridge to use up, and it meant I could use the peach juice from the can as well, but if you want to use fresh peaches I'd use three or four peeled and chopped, and for the liquid element, perhaps the Granini Peach Drink that's made using peach puree (available in Tesco and Waitrose) or peach-flavoured squash, made up quite strong.

Peaches and Cream Cake - an original recipe by Caroline Makes, for Caroline Makes.Net

You need:

Cake Release spray for greasing the mould

200g butter, softened

200g caster sugar

4 eggs

1 cup peach juice or squash

about 200g peaches, either tinned or fresh, peeled and sliced if necessary

275g self raising flour

 

 

I used the Lakeland sandcastle silicone mould for this cake, which doesn't seem to be available on their site any more - if you want to purchase one, keep an eye on Ebay, or you can use any shaped cake tin or mould.

Preheat the oven to 150C. Spray the sandcastle mould with Cake Release or similar.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer then mix in the eggs.

Add the peach juice and mix again. Finally add the sliced peaches and the flour and gently fold in.

 Stand the sandcastle mould in a large roasting tin and pour the cake mixture into the mould. Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour.

Allow to cool in the mould and then turn out onto a cooling rack.

 This was a beautifully light and moist cake; so moist in fact it started to break as I took it out of the mould before it was completely cooled, which will teach me to be more patient next time!

 

I'm sending this to Love Cake, hosted by Ness at JibberJabberUK; her theme is garden party and this cake would make a great centrepiece.

 

I'm also sharing this with the Food Calendar linky on Charlotte's Lively Kitchen as it's summer holiday season!

 

Cinnamon French Toast with Caramelised Peaches

I love picking up free magazines from supermarkets, and often get the Tesco magazine, which is packed with features, snippets about new products and recipes. I decided to make a few things from the latest issue, starting with French toast with caramelised peaches. In the recipe, it was served with rum-spiked mascarpone but I decided to do this for brunch and decided the mascarpone would be a bit much. It would have been a nice touch but if you are counting the calories it’s still a really nice dish on its own.

 

I bought a loaf of pre-sliced brioche which made the recipe very easy. To serve two people, you just need to mix 1 egg, 50ml milk, a dash of vanilla essence, a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar and the zest of one orange in a wide shallow bowl, and dip each slice of bread in.

 

Heat a little butter in a frying pan and fry each slice of bread on both sides until browned. I put the oven on low (100C) to keep the slices of brioche warm as I was doing a few rounds in the frying pan. This way, you can also do the peaches in the same pan to save on washing up.

Peel and halve a fresh peach, removing the stone (one per person is about right) and heat a little more butter in the pan. Mix brown sugar and cinnamon and press onto the cut side of each peach. Fry in the frying pan on both sides until softened, and serve with the French toast.

 

 

If you want to serve with mascarpone you just beat 75g mascarpone cheese with 1/2 tbsp. rum and 1/2 tbsp. icing sugar and serve.

 

Jareth's Temptation - Peaches, Cream, Meringue and Pomegranate Dessert

Not to be confused with Jansson's Temptation, which is something different entirely - this dessert is inspired by my favourite 80s movie.

Labyrinth came out when I was seven years old and a friend of mine had it on VHS - my family didn't even have a video recorder at that time. I absolutely loved the film, mainly for the songs - the animated characters were on the whole a bit irritating for my liking (anyone else find Hoggle really annoying?) but the idea of the quest to find the baby brother was the sort of thing I couldn't get enough of.

Best of all though were the two leads, Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie. I don't think I even knew who David Bowie was at that point but he was mesmerising (and looking back now, very overtly sexual though I was blissfully ignorant of that sort of thing at the time!).

Connelly was only 16 when she played the role and she was breathtakingly beautiful in her ball gown in the scene where Hoggle has given Sarah (Connelly) a peach, enchanted by Jareth (Bowie) so she will lose her memories and will forget she is looking for her brother. That's probably my favourite scene in the movie.

I decided to make a dessert inspired by that scene, so peaches had to be the main ingredient. I also wanted something that would conjure up the white ballgown that Sarah wore, hence whipped cream and meringue. Finally, I decided the sharpness of pomegranate would cut through in the way that Jareth's intentions behind giving Sarah the peach are malicious - and pomegranate seeds are a symbol of fertility which adds the sexual overtones. All that in a dessert!

The recipe is very simple as I bought a shop-bought meringue due to lack of time. Slice up a fresh peach and drizzle over some honey; grill or roast them until softened and slightly browned. Pile on top of the meringue, top with whipped cream and drizzle with pomegranate molasses and pomegranate seeds as well if desired.

I'm sharing this with Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has chosen this month is J. I hope she doesn't mind this entry - I've given it the name of Jareth's Temptation though none of the ingredients actually begin with J! I've been away on holiday and for work for most of this month so this is the best I could do....

 

Bellini Bundt

 This cake came into being for many reasons. Firstly, I got three Nordicware bundt tins for Christmas - I suggested to my boyfriend that I would like one, and picked out three that I liked, expecting that he might get me one of them. He did get me one - and his mum got me the second one, and his brother and sister in law got me the third! So I wanted to make a cake to try out the first tin. I also had some leftover champagne in the fridge from new year's eve that I wanted to use up, and thought I would see if I could find a cake recipe to use champagne - and I knew that would fit with the Baking with Spirit challenge as the theme this month is frugal. When I found a recipe and realised it used yogurt, I was pleased as that meant I could also enter it in Alphabakes. And finally another reason I wanted to make a cake - I've got a new job. I am a writer for a City firm and I'm, well, going to be a writer for another City firm - but it's a promotion and should be very different to what I'm doing now. I'm known for my cakes at work and realised that if I only had a month's notice left, I wanted to leave people with the memory of some really nice cakes. I also thought offering my colleagues a slice of cake when I broke the news might be nice - one girl actually did say she was so shocked she needed a cup of tea, and a slice of cake!

So this bellini bundt - featuring champagne and peaches, like the cocktail - is the perfect cake to celebrate my new job. Also, a cake including fruit seems somehow a little bit healthier, which is also a good thing in January!

I found a recipe on this website on FoodLustPeopleLove.com via Foodie.com though I adapted it as I found it easier to use tinned peaches rather than fresh (purely down to when I was able to go shopping).

You need:

375g plain flour

225g butter

450g caster sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

400g tin of peaches, drained

150g peach yogurt

150ml champagne

75g icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180C then cream the butter and the sugar.

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each one.

Add the flour and baking powder and mix.

I couldn't find peach yogurt and instead used 0% fat mango, peach and passion fruit yogurt, which tasted very good.

I had two small tins of peaches which I drained.

Add the yogurt and peaches to the cake mixture and mix with a hand mixer so the peaches are broken up but not pureed.

Here's my leftover champagne, which kept its fizz thanks to a bottle stopper. Add 125ml champagne to the cake mixture and gently mix in.

This is the Nordicware bundt tin I received for Christmas. It has a lovely swirly pattern that I knew would look great on a cake. I sprayed it thoroughly with Dr. Oetker cake release, which worked perfectly.

Fill the bundt tin with the cake mixture and bake for about an hour until you can insert a skewer and it comes out clean.

Turn out and leave to cool. I was impressed by how easily the cake came out of the tin and how well the pattern showed up.

To make the glaze, mix a splash of champagne with the icing sugar and mix to a paste, and drizzle over the cake. You probably want to put it on a piece of greaseproof paper that you can throw away afterwards!

I love the shape of this cake and my work colleagues, who had never seen a cake tin like this before, thought it was amazing (one thought I had actually carved the cake into that shape!).

 Here you can see it from the side.

This cake was absolutely delicious - one person said it was the best I've ever made. The peach flavour was subtle but definitely there, and the yogurt made the cake really light and moist. This is definitely a winner!

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has chosen is Y - in this case for yogurt.

 I'm sending this to Turquoise Lemons for the No Waste Food challenge as this uses up leftover champagne.

 As already mentioned, the theme for this month's Baking with Spirit, hosted by Janine at Cake of the Week, is frugal. This recipe uses up leftover champagne so while it's not cheap in the first place, it's better than letting the bubbly go to waste - and it doesn't cost anything extra if you had bought the champagne already for a party!

I am also sending this to Tea Time Treats, hosted by,Jane at the Hedgecombers and Karen of Lavender and Lovage, This month they are asking for any recipe that uses eggs; this cake uses four.