Double-layered Malted & Vanilla Chocolate Cheesecake

Right, and we're back to our usual scheduling of sugary dessert goodness. Oh dessert, my love, how I've missed you so...

We kick-start our roll of desserts with a double-layered malted milk chocolate & vanilla white chocolate cheesecake. I know the name's a mouthful but trust me, while you're explaining what it is to your guests, they'll be too busy stuffing their face and rolling on the floor in delight to care. I promise.

I really like cheesecake. Understatement. I love cheesecake. Set cheesecakes are great as they are perfect make-ahead desserts, which suits me just fine as a frequent dinner-party host. And they are super-easy to make too.

Now, when I say 'malted milk chocolate', I actually mean 'Milo'. If you haven't heard of Milo, it's a malted milk chocolate drink which I very much associate with my Malaysian childhood. I'm sure you can substitute the Milo for chocolate Horlicks or some such other malted powder.

  

Ingredients:
250g plain malted biscuits
100g salted butter
3 tbsp caster sugar
2 x 300g tubs of cream cheese
300ml double cream
2 teaspoons of gelatine powder
60ml of water
250g white chocolate, melted
250g milk chocolate, melted
2 tbsp Milo/chocolate Horlicks
2 tbsp vanilla essence
Additional melted milk chocolate to decorate

First, grease the base and sides of a spring-form cake tin with a removable base.

Whip out your trusty food processor and blitz those biscuits to a fine crumb. Melt your butter and stir into the crushed biscuit crumbs with 1 tbsp of sugar until it starts to come together with a texture like wet sand. Press the crumb mixture into the base until tightly packed, then place the tins into the fridge to chill.

Divide the cream cheese evenly between two bowls. In one bowl, add your vanilla essence and melted white chocolate then add the melted milk chocolate, malted milk chocolate and 2 tbsp of caster sugar into the other.

Dissolve your gelatine into warm water and set aside. 

Separately beat each cream cheese mix with an electric mixer until well combined. Into each bowl, add 30ml of the water dissolved with gelatine and beat well using your electric mix, until the mixture is smooth.

Onto your biscuit base, pour in the white chocolate vanilla mix and clean down the sides to leave a smooth edge. Carefully spoon the milk chocolate mixture onto the top and gently smooth the top.

Place into the fridge and chill for at least 5 hours. Before serving and once the cheesecake has set, melt some milk chocolate until it is runny. Dip a chopstick into the melted chocolate and drizzle/flick it over the top of the cheesecake until a 'net' has been created on the surface. Cover with clingfilm and place back in the refrigerator to chill until ready to serve.

Once again, these photos are thanks to Jason Kang!

Salmon En Croute

Today's post is one final detour from the sugar-highs that usually grace the pages of this blog and also a way for me to have another moment of laziness, since this is a sort of guest post from my lovely 'baby' brother. Sure, he's 21 now and about a foot taller than me but he's still my baby brother. Hence why I'm always suitably surprised and impressed when he's able to use sharp knives without supervision and is able to produce something as impressive as this salmon en croute. You'd think I'd be used to it by now. I managed to embarrass my (baby) sister this summer when I basically freaked out at her wandering a mall with her friends without parental supervision. She just gave me 'that look' and reminded me that she's now 15, not 10. 

Anyway, enough rambling and making myself feel old. As I mentioned, this post comes from my brother, who has kindly provided the recipe/instructions and did the actual cooking, while I took a handful of photos (that don't do the dish justice). Perhaps if I can get the sister to stop frying her cupcakes, then maybe I could get her to guest post too and we'll have a full set (she's going to love that jibe...) Let's give it a couple of years and see. 

And now, on to the recipe. I have been assured (and having read over the instructions) that this is one of those wonderful recipes that look really impressive, but are actually very simple. My favourite kind. Also, excitingly, this is the last post with photos of questionable quality/resolution, as everything from now on has been captured on the new camera. And now, handing you over to my brother... 

Ingredients: 

One side of salmon, skinless.

One tub of cream cheese (about 200g).

One large bag of spinach, fresh or frozen (about 400g).

Puff pastry - the number of sheets required depends entirely on the size of the salmon you have.

One egg, beaten. 

I recommend making the filling first:

1. Take a large pan/saucepan and fill it with half an inch of boiling water. 

2. Add the spinach and a knob of butter, and quickly sauté it until soft.

3. Once the spinach has cooled down, push it firmly against a sieve to release as much moisture as possible; this is VERY important as it ensures the pastry won't be soggy at all. 

4. In a bowl, mix the spinach with the cream cheese and season well. 

Now to prepare the salmon:

1. It is vital to skin the salmon if it hasn't already been skinned. If you don't know how to skin a salmon,  I recommend you watch this video.

2. Pin bone the salmon.

Assembling the salmon en croute:

1. Line a baking tray large enough to fit the side of salmon with baking paper that has been well greased.

2. Roll out a sheet of puff pastry large enough to fit the side of salmon. The pastry should be about 5mm thick. More than one block/sheet might have to be combined; if that's the case then join them with some egg wash.

3. Lay the salmon on the pastry. Make sure there is a space of about 1cm around the side of salmon.

4. Season the salmon and carefully spoon on the filling across the salmon evenly.

5. Brush the edges of the first sheet of pastry around the salmon with egg wash.

6. Roll out another sheet of puff pastry as per (2.) and carefully place it on top of the salmon, taking care not to stretch it or to trap in too much air. Tuck the pastry in well around the salmon, press the edges together to seal and trim away the excess to leave a 2.5cm/1in band all the way around. 

7. Ideally, you would rest the salmon for about an hour. Preheat the oven to 190c fan oven. 

8. Brush the salmon parcel well with egg wash all over. 

9. The artistically inclined can now decorate the parcel in whatever way they wish with any excess pastry and by scoring any patterns onto the surface. 

10. Add another glaze of the eggwash to ensure the pastry will be crisp and bake the parcel for around 30 mins or until the pastry is a golden brown.

11. Remove the parcel from the oven and let it rest for 5 mins before serving. 

Salmon en croute is equally delicious warm as it is cold and so any leftovers can be kept in the fridge. 

This really is quite a simple dish to make but it just requires a lot of preparation. In fact, all of the steps can be done in advance. 

 

...And there we have it, folks! Thanks to my brother for his post. I'm sure I'll be able to convince him to do another post when I'm in for another savoury fix here. Next week we're back to our sugary ways, with a cheesecake experiment...