Cheesecake Failure – Rookie Error

Cheesecake

It has always been one of those puddings that sounds yuk! but tastes lush. I mean cake and cheese? together? But then when I think of cheese, I think of the lovely cheddar and can’t envisage the 2 together.

I haven’t always been a fan of cheesecake believe it or not. It was always one of those puddings that looked nice, but the name did put me off. Until, I tried Vanilla Cheesecake. Oh my I realised what I had been missing! So from then on I would buy Vanilla Cheesecake and we all enjoyed it.

 

On a mission to encourage the children to help with cooking, We are making more and more dishes at home rather than buying ready made. This week was the turn of Cheesecake! None of us have ever attempted to make a cheesecake so it will be interesting!

 

Recipe

The recipe I had chosen was a no bake one, I figured if I didn’t have to mess around with temperature controls then I can’t go too wrong! Famous last words those! Also, when I say recipe I mean I looked at the ingredients, gathered what i had already and shoved it all in the bowl.

First mistake – When putting the digestive biscuits in the sandwich bag to whack, make sure there is no air. Otherwise you will pop the bag and end up with crumbs everywhere! I so wish i took a photo of that.

Mistake number 2 – When the recipe calls for “Whipped Cream” spray cream probably isn’t a great alternative. It tasted pretty good though!

So, the actual base turned out pretty good! It looked great and tasted good too so that was a success (probably the only one of the day to be honest)

The topping

So, this was the part that went wrong on so many levels. Now looking back it was most likely due to my inability to actually follow instructions, and not taking my time.

So i put 200g of Cream Cheese in a bowl (recipe said 300g but i just figured i would have a thin top layer) I added Icing Sugar. The Scales were on top of the cupboard, I am 5ft 2, it wasn’t happening i couldn’t reach. We  added the sugar to the bowl and “whipped” until it looked alright to me. I have no idea how it was meant to look, but it looked okay.

We sprayed some spray cream into the bowl and using a hand whisked I just went for it. The cream melted and it didn’t make “stiff peaks” like the recipe said it should. We also forgot the lemon juice at this point so just squeezed half a lemon twice in the bowl. Jack then also reminded me we were making a vanilla cheesecake so we added a couple of drops of vanilla essence.

I whisked and whisked, but after several minutes i gave up, and poured it over the base. I then left it in the fridge over night to set.

The Finale!

Normally the boys like to eat cheesecake, this time however they didn’t. I wasn’t sure if it was the appearance or the taste because it tasted rather lovely, if not a little tangy. But the appearance, as soon as it came out of the fridge it melted everywhere! I was kind of relived i had left it on a larger chopping board to catch the spills.

The top of the cheesecake tasted like the top of Carrot Cake. So although it was nice, and after a bit 4 mouthfuls it started to taste sickly and a bit too much. I gave up eating it and left it in the fridge for Mark to eat as and when he wanted something sweet.

 

What we learnt

We learnt, that although it was rather fun making the cheesecake, if we wanted to actually eat something a little more than just edible, Mr Tesco make and sell a lovely one. This isn’t going to stop us from trying again though, and next time i will succeed!