Feeling HOT HOT HOT

Hello my darlings,

So over here it is HOT HOT HOT I can tell you, and as lovely as that is for going to the beach, having BBQ's, going to festivals and generally enjoying the sun, it does not motivate me to bake. This is for the simple reason that my room is a sauna and putting the oven on nearly kills me, BUT: I can't help myself! Here are my latest creations:

First up, for my friend's BBQ I made a white chocolate strawberry cheesecake. Now that's quite a mouthful, but it wasn't as rich as it sounded, because I actually got the recipe from a slimming magazine. So it suggests low-fat quark rather than cream cheese and I used soy margarine in the ginger snap base rather than actual butter. The chocolate mixed in with the quark (I grated a bar of white chocolate so it wouldn't be TOO rich) isn't that healthy I suppose, but I used sugar-free jelly and fresh strawberries. Of course stuffing our faces with meat and bread and hummus before eating the cake kind of defeats the purpose, but it was interesting to make such a yummy cake (for it WAS!) while using slightly-less-bad-for-you ingredients :)


So here's the cake, fresh out of the oven and after letting it cool and set in the fridge overnight, I added sliced, fresh strawberries.


What made this cake so pretty and eye-catching for me in the first place was the jelly: it's strawberry jelly I got from my little British shop. In the picture with the recipe the strawberries were completely immersed in the jelly, but mine just floated to the top the whole time, stubborn little things. No matter though! I finished off the decoration right before presenting it with just a couple more fresh strawberries.


Taking the cake tin off made me a little nervous (especially when at first it didn't want to come off!) because the cake in the recipe picture was so perfect. Mine was quite that, for one it was brown and not white (I still haven't got the hang of baked cheesecake, I just can't tell when it's done or not!) but it was beautiful on the inside!!




Now will you look at that little slice of gorgeous. Definitely something I want to try making again!!




Now next up, quietly inserted at the end, for this night is not something we really want to remember, but for the World Cup final I made chocolate cupcakes with orange icing (flavour as well as colour). They were cute and yummy but unfortunately did not help us win one bit. Oh well! They were good consolation food for us :)