Tuesday 27 November 2007

A Cheesecake Experience


I'm pretty experienced with cheesecake.

(Whit-woo)

No no no, what I mean is, I got an A* at GCSE Home Ec, back in the day (yeah alright, two years ago then). It pretty much entailed being given a specification - like, choose a dessert and find ways to make it more healthy, or add fruit, or whatever - and, provided it ticked the right boxes, you could make whatever you like.

I made cheesecake.

Er, more or less every week.

Cheesecake is just... perfect. Need to add fruit? Stick some raspberries on top! Need to show a particular skill? Use a recipe with gelatin in it! Need to use the fridge? Cheesecake! Need to use the oven? Cheesecake! Want to make my favourite dessert in the world? Cheesecake! Not only can it be chilled, baked or set, you can used more or less whatever ingredients you fancy, whatever base you're in the mood for... I thought I'd pretty much explored every avenue cheesecake had.

APPARENTLY NOT!

What with being such a talented procrastinator, I was looking round a couple of food blogs a while ago and found this Japanese cheesecake recipe on Su Good Sweets. Japanese + Cheesecake?!? = THIS HAD TO BE GOOD. I saved it, printed it off, and promptly forgot all about it.

That said, this is only cheesecake as I know it by merit of the fact it, you know, contains cheese. You should have seen me when I re-found this recipe the other week. 'WHERE IS THE BASE?!' I cried, my brain addled. 'WHAT'S GOING ONNN??'

This is what's going on, my friends.


Su Good Sweets

My fingers are getting tired of typing 'cheesecake'. Bear with me, little fingers.



Rather than type out the recipe, you can find it at the link above, but I'll add a couple of things:

+ Cornstarch, as far as I can tell, means two different things in that ingredients list. The one describing cake flour refers to what we call cornflour in Britain, and the second one is cornstarch. At least, I hope so. I just used regular plain flour rather than cornflour, but I used a little less than it said and added a little less cornstarch... just on a whim, apparently.

+ It says it needs an 8-inch cake tin, but either that's a very deep tin, or I can't measure things; I used a 9 1/2 inch springform tin (and I was lucky in that the batter didn't leak out) and couldn't have done with a smaller one.

+ This didn't have a very strong green tea flavour, but I think that was my fault, as I was worried I'd leave the teabags in too long and it'd end up being too bitter (it didn't). I'd probably leave them a bit longer next time.

+ It says it takes 1 hour 10 mins - I checked it after 40 and it was perfectly golden on top, so you might want to cover it with foil after 40-45 mins to stop it over-browning. I also didn't leave it the full time after that - probably just under an hour overall. I don't think it really needed any longer, either, but you'd probably have to judge for yourself ^__^



Overall = 1664.8 cals. In a 9.5 inch tin, it serves about ten, at 166 cals each. You wouldn't find that with a Western cheesecake!


...If only I'd known about this two years earlier, when the specification was to make a dessert healthier. X__X Cheesecake couldn't tide me through that one...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

this is the kind of healthy dessert I'm talking bout.

how much for you to make one for me?

and write your last 800 words, wummin!

this is TURQ btw. stupid account won't let me sign in >_<

Jessica "Su Good Sweets" said...

Wow, your cheesecake looks so cottony and airy. Better than mine! Yup, you were supposed to use corn starch. Also, I baked mine in an 8" pan and it worked out. Hmm.

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Anna said...

Turq darling, you are welcome to as many Japanese cheesecakes as you like, but I still refuse to even THINK of a sugarless cake ^__^ (and I've hit 50,000 btw = WINNERRR!)

Jessica - thanks for commenting! Yours was definitely smoother though; I had little lumps towards the bottom that I tried to hide in the photos ^__^ heh. I did try an 8" pan originally and had to scrape it out as there was far too much... maybe my tin was just shallower? Cheers!

...Afraid I don't understand the last comment btw, but if it's about an internet providor then... X__X lol.

Anonymous said...

I <3 Japanese cheesecake so so much! For increased green tea flavour, some matcha powder added to the batter would probably give a nice boost, that's what I do for mine :)

Ellie @ Kitchen Wench

Anna said...

Hey, thanks for commenting! Yeah, I'd like to try it with matcha powder, and I think that would make the colour a bit stronger too... but I've no idea where to buy it round here, heh. Will keep an eye out and have another go with it ^__^