Lemon and Blueberry Jelly Cheesecakes

We all have our favourite ways to unwind. Yours might be to curl up with a book (I like that, too). Another person might go for a long walk (I also like that, too). I, for one, first head into the kitchen. There's nothing like shutting yourself off from the world for a while and indulging in your creativity. The scene is perfected if you have someone keeping you company who you can talk to or if you have some of your favourite music playing (what I like to play when I cook is some Chopin or Mozart, Arabian or Latin lounge music works too, though). 

This week I'm on spring break. That means nine days of not attending class and also, in my case, not looking at anything remotely academically related. I think we all need to tune out for a while; it helps re-energize and motivate. 

After seeing this beautiful post I was inspired to create something with the same jell-o technique which I find absolutely gorgeous. But I made it cheesecake style. Because I had also seen a picture of  individual no-bake cheesecakes in jars on Pinterest. So voila I combined the two. And what better flavor combination than lemon and blueberry? Ok there's raspberry and white chocolate and pumpkin and sage and caramel and apple. But you get my point. The lovely thing about this is that it's so versatile- you can experiment with so many different fillings. 

I had to make my own jello as all the supermarkets were out of lemon-flavored jello, but it was healthier (if that's possible!) since the flavors were real and not artificial like the ones we get in sachets here. The result was fabulous at the end but I would've loved to have a deeper yellow for the jelly. 

Also, only after eating it did the ditz in me realize that gelatin is not vegetarian-compatible. And I was at 5 days short of 6 months of being vegetarian. 

Anyways, the past is in the past. Let's move on and get to the recipe. This makes 10 servings. I made four and turned the rest into a trifle.

for the lemon jello

2.25 tbsp unflavored gelatin

1/2 cup cold water

750ml lemonade

Juice and zest of one lemon

2tsp sugar

Soak gelatin with water. 

Boil the lemonade and pour over gelatin.

Add lemon juice and zest with sugar and stir through. 

for the cheesecake

300ml sweetened condensed milk

500g cream cheese

Juice of half a lemon

2 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 cup blueberries

Beat together the sweetened condensed milk, cream cheese, lemon juice, and vanilla essence. 

Gently mash the blueberries and stir through the cheesecake mixture. 

Refrigerate until needed. 

Just before using, beat once more.

for garnishing

40g crumbled digestive biscuits

blueberries, extra

1 tsp lemon zest

Assembly

Place a quarter cup of liquid lemon jello in a 250ml glass. 

Place the glasses in a loaf tin at a slant angle and refrigerate until set. 

Once set, fill the other half of the glass with the cheesecake mixture.

Sprinkle the crumbled biscuits as a topping and garnish with some lemon zest and blueberries.

 This is what I did with the leftovers: made a trifle!

And this is post-munching status.....

Blueberry and Mascarpone Biscuit Bites

Lemon and blueberry... one of those classic combinations where you can't go wrong, just like raspberry and white chocolate.

I found a recipe in a book called "Lemon and Blueberry Cakes with a Cheesecake Topping"... the picture was adorable, there were these mini cakes topped with a second, equally thick and really white layer of cheesecake  topping. The whole thing was topped with some tiny blueberries. The picture did not correspond to the recipe... in the sense that the procedure in no way would end up making cakes that looked like that!


Anyhow, I tried it. And my suspicions were correct. I ended up with very moist muffins. Disheartened with this result, I decided to play around the concept and come up with something quite similar but not exactly.

 

So I made these blueberry and mascarpone biscuit bites. The base is a biscuit layer (cooked in a mini cupcake tray). The topping is simply some piped mascarpone cheese and blueberries.

I took these to Devina's potluck this Friday and they were a big success. And they're very, very simple to make!

Ingredients, 
oil or butter for greasing
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 cup self raising flour
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup fresh blueberries

Procedure
Generously grease the cupcake tray.
Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg and beat until combined.
Add the sifted flours and fold in.
Mix in the vanilla extract and make sure everything is well combined.
Take teaspoons of the dough and press into each hole in the tin. Make sure they're 3/4 full.
Bake at 180C in a preheated oven for around 20 minutes until relatively cooked but soft.
Remove from oven and allow to cool completely in tin, around one hour.
Once cooled, spoon the mascarpone cheese into a piping bag with a small star tip.
Pipe from the center out and place two to three blueberries on top.

Teatime Treats

These are all adorable tea-time treats that are for the most part bite-sized. I used the same ingredients in a many of them. The tart filling is the same as the filling in the Victoria Sponge Cake. And the buttercream on the heart shaped cakes is the same that is in the mini tarts.. and the berries, well they're in everything. Almost.

I got around 30 little tarts, 4 big tarts, 20 heart-shaped cakes, and two 5" cakes from one pie dough and one cake batter. My dad took the Victoria Sponge (which was coffee-infused, tiramisu style) to his office, and I sent the rest of the cakes to friends' homes and took some to uni with me.

These are all pretty simple to make.

For the Victoria Sponge, make two vanilla cakes and when they're cool mix together 250g of mascarpone, 284ml of double cream, and two tablespoons of coffee together. Spread over one cake, top with berries, and place the second cake over it.

For the heart shaped cakes, either use silicon heart shaped cupcake cases, or a heart shaped cupcake tray. Make and bake them just like cupcakes and then pipe the frosting on top.

For the tart crust, make a normal pie crust and put them into pie tins for the normal sized ones and for the mini ones, place them in a mini cupcake tray. The berry tart's filling is the tiramisu filling and the mini tart filling is vanilla buttercream (tinted pink!)

Raspberry Cream Sandwiches

Originally by Martha Stewart with some variations of my own.

Ingredients:

For the cookies:

1 and 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

10 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature

1 and 1/2 cups caster sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped and reserved

For the filling:

1 and 1/3 cups fresh raspberries

2 teaspoons granulated sugar

212 grams white chocolate, coarsely chopped

1/3 cup heavy cream

Procedure:

1. Preheat the oven to 350f/180C. Make cookies: whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy about 2 minutes. Add egg, vanilla extract, and vanilla seeds. Mix until smoother. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture.

2. Using a teaspoon, roll out dough into small balls and drop onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing 2 inches apart. Press dough balls gently with back of spoon to flatten. Bake, rotating sheets halfway though until golden and just set, 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool on parchment on wire racks.

3. Make filling: puree raspberries and sugar in food processor. Pour mixture though a fine sieve into a small bowl, pressing to extract juice, discard seeds.

4. Melt white chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Remove from heat, whisk in cream in a slow, steady stream. Add reserved raspberry mixture; slowly whisk until pale, about three minutes. Refrigerate 30 minutes.

5. Assemble cookies: spread 1 tablespoon filling onto the bottom of one cookie; sandwich with another. Repeat.

Some pictures of the entire process