Baked Mini Red Velvet Cheesecakes

Anyone who has known me for more than a year knows that St.Valentine's Day and I have a love hate relationship. I'm a hopeless romantic. Yet The Man Up Stairs has a great sense of humor and has sent me disappointments on that day just about every year since I have been in love. Yes, I'm talking about you, ex-boyfriends. Just kidding. They never lasted till St.Valentine's Day.
I've only ever been wined and dined by my darling husband for St.Valentine's Day, seeing as we both met at 19. He's the sweetest man and always spoils me, and St.Valentine's Day is no exception. But what do you do when fate wants to put a damper on your romantic evening? Every year?
Like what if the waterfront restaurant you booked happens to float away down the river?
Or the dozens of Chinese lanterns you decked the veranda out with decide to only light up for half an hour?
The bouquet of chocolates you sent to his work didn't arrive at his work before he left?
These are just a few of the things that could go wrong on St.Valentine's Day, and for me they did. Yes, that restaurant literally drifted away down the river a few days before our booking. Ironically, the restaurant was called "Drift".
Anyway, from past experience I now know that I can't rely on anyone else to make St.Valentine's Day special--with the exception of my husband, he has planned the dinner and is cooking it himself, and I can't wait to see what he serves. As you might have guessed, I'm to create the dessert. So I've been trialing a few different recipes that would make lovely romantic St. Valentine's Day desserts. Here's one of them--baked mini red velvet cheesecakes with a chocolate crust bottom, topped with a swirl of whipped cream and a dusting of cocoa. Needless to say, I'm in love with these deliciously creamy morsels.

BAKED MINI RED VELVET CHEESECAKES

Base:
10 chocolate chip biscuits
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp butter, melted

Filling:
250g cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp red food colouring
1 egg
1/2 cup whipped cream to decorate
chocolate shavings to decorate if desired

 Preheat the oven to 180C.
Lightly great 20 mini muffin holes (I used a silicone mini muffin tray.)
In a food blender, place the broken biscuits and chop until they resemble fine bread crumbs. Transfer to a small bowl and add the cocoa powder and melted butter. Combine thoroughly, then divide the mixture between the 20 mini muffin holes. Press the mixture firmly into each hole using your fingers or the back of a spoon. Place in the refrigerator while preparing the cheesecake filling.
To make the filling, beat the cream cheese in a medium bowl until smooth. Add the sugar and cocoa and beat until fluffy. Add the vanilla and red food colouring and beat until well combined. Add the egg and beat until smooth. Divide the cheesecake mixture evenly among the muffin holes  so that the cups are almost full. Bake for 20-25 minutes until centres are firm, and leave for 15 minutes to cool in the tray. The cheesecakes may sink a little.
Cover and refrigerate for an hour at least, before garnishing with whipped cream and chocolate, if desired.

Makes 20 mini cheesecakes

Faux Profiteroles

Delicious accidents--I love them. It makes me look pretty silly though in some ways, how I came to discover these puffy little balls of pastry, custardy, chocolatey yumminess. I admit to being totally incompetent in the kitchen sometimes. I have my days of being good, but let me share a little bit of news--I'm pretty crap sometimes. My husband can confirm this if you ask him.
On a very busy day I decided it would be nice to have cake, and turned to a packet mixture. I thought, how hard can it be to cook a cake in the microwave? I'd never done it before nor liked the sound of it, but cooking for 10 minutes right then sounded mighty tempting. For some reason the fact that it was to be artificially cooked didn't bother me, and I thought, "No one is even going to know". I followed the microwaving packet instructions and everything.
It came out of the microwave looking like vomit.
It was overcooked and dry in parts, and soft and gooey in other parts. Either my microwave has problems or I do. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the latter. Serves me right for using fake cake and fake methods.
Okay, that was pretty embarrassing. This other error I made gave me so much more joy and I actually worked with what had happened. It was a pleasant discovery.
I was attempting to make mini puff pastry tart shells for a party we were holding. I was going to fill them with curried tuna and cucumber but well, that never eventuated. I cut out small discs of pastry and pressed them into the bottom of the mini muffin tray and put them in the oven at 210C. The next time I looked at them, they were puffed up and very round, like pastry balls! I figured it must have been due to the higher temperature I set them at, as I had made shells before without a problem on a lower heat. Anyway I let them be, and waited until the tops had turned golden and crisped up, so that they wouldn't deflate when they cooled down. I ended up filling them with creme patisserie and dipping the tops in chocolate, sort of like faux profiteroles. Have mishaps with choux pastry and making the real profiteroles? This is probably a recipe for you then! They made great little petits fours at our cocktail party.

FAUX PROFITEROLES

1 1/2 sheets pre-rolled puff pastry, thawed
1 cup milk
2 large egg yolks
3 tbsp. sugar
1 1/2 tbsp. cornflour
20g butter, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla essence
150-200g chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 210C.
If you are not using a silicone mini muffin pan, grease a regular mini muffin tray (or mini cupcake liners would probably work too, see notes below).
Using a 5cm biscuit cutter, cut out 24 circles of puff pastry.Place each circle of pastry inside the mini muffin tray holes. Place in preheated oven and cook for 35-40 minutes, or until golden and crisp on the outside and have puffed up like balls.
Meanwhile, to make the patisserie creme, place milk in a small saucepan and bring to the boil.
While heating, in a separate saucepan, combine yolks, sugar and cornflour and whisk over a low heat. When the milk has boiled, add a few tablespoons into the yolk mixture and whisk. Gradually add the remaining milk and whisk vigorously on a medium heat. Custard will thicken. Continue to whisk until boils, and remove from heat. Scrape into a small bowl and sit in a few inches of cold water or ice, to cease the cooking process. When cooler, add the butter in 3-4 installments, stirring until combined. Add essence, mix and refrigerate.
When the pastry is done, remove from the oven and allow to cool.
With a sharp knife, pierce one side of each pastry puff and twist the blade to create a small hole. Wiggle the knife blade inside the puff so that some of the pastry inside crumbles away and makes it more hollow. Empty each pastry puff of any crumbs.  Fill a piping bag (fitted with a thin round nozzle that will fit in the hole) with the cooled patisserie creme. Fill each pastry puff.
Take the chocolate and place it in a microwave proof bowl. Heat for 20 seconds on high, remove, and stir. Repeat until the chocolate becomes smooth when stirred. The duration for this melting process will depend on the strength of your microwave.
Spread the tops of each pastry puff with chocolate and set aside until the chocolate becomes firm.
Serve.

Makes 24

NOTES: You can make these pastry puffs without a muffin tray, if you place them on a regular baking tray. They do not appear as round when made like this but still have the same sort of effect. When the pastry is cooked in a mini muffin tray, they tend to rise more and are ball shaped.
Patisserie Creme stores for 2-3 days.

Raspberry Lemonade Slice

I knew that this May was all panning out too well not to come with some sort of price. Everything was in my favour until the last day, when I found out that I had some sort of malware warning coming up when anyone tried to visit the page though the internet browser Chrome. I had no idea what malware even was, how it got there and what on earth I was going to do about it. It was deterring visitors and scaring the heck out of me since reading a post earlier that day about blog hijacking. It will never happen to me, I thought. Anyway, it didn't get that serious that I lost control of my page or anything, but there was apparently some evil content on my page coming through the site that hosted the picture for my blog background, Shabby Blogs. So after lots of panicking and hasty researching, I came up with a solution. Delete everything connected to that wormy site! Htmls, everything had to go. Now the problem seems to have disappeared, sadly with the pretty little blog design that was the skin of Lick The Spoon. So that's the explanation for the little facelift that the blog has undergone in the last few days.
 But the recipes keep on churning out! If you've been following for a while, you'll be seeing a bit of a theme going on here. I get quite thrilled by colour when it comes to food, and like a bull, excited by red. Actually I recently heard that bulls can only see blue and yellow, and that movement is what excites them...but...you get my point. If you've been in my kitchen you will see splashes of red appearing too. There's just something about that colour.
So when I decided to buy some frozen raspberries, that made me go on a mad raspberry recipe hunt, and my eyes were instantly drawn to this vivid raspberry lemon slice.
My hubby doesn't like berries like I do, and I think it's mainly to do with the seeds that tend to sneakily linger in your teeth after devouring them. Especially raspberry seeds. Those little demons can hang around for a while and make you look pretty demented as you try to remove them. Well have no fear, all the seeds are removed from this delicious slice. I call it a slice, but as soon as I cut into it, a million ideas were pulsating through my brain.  To me this is a wonderfully versatile recipe as far as sweets go, just depending on how you cut it and decorate it. You can cut it  into a slice or squares for a casual affair, or make them fancy petits fours simply by cutting them into 2x2 inch squares, and topping them with a raspberry. If you cut them into long rectangles you could serve it as an elegant dessert, with a pretty garnish of mint, raspberry and a drizzling of cream. This slice freezes well too, so it is a perfect make ahead dessert for your up and coming dinner party menu. A no stress yet impressive dessert sounds pretty good to me. And it's practically guilt free too!
The filling has a similar texture to lemon curd that has set (as you often find in lemon meringue pies once cooked) and has that same delightful tartness, combined with the subtle raspberry flavouring and a lovely simple buttery base. It reminds me somewhat of Starburst lollies. Fruity and tangy! I think I will try this filling inside a meringue pie. How does Raspberry Lemon Meringue Pie sound to you? Makes me start craving. Keep your eyes open for the recipe!

Cut into petit fours as a lovely dessert at a cocktail party

Fancy it up with a garnish

Dessert style

A winning combination..

RASPBERRY LEMONADE SLICE (Adapted from The Improv Kitchen)


Crust:

9 tbsp butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp vanilla essence
pinch of salt

Filling:

2 1/2 cups frozen raspberries, thawed
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup lemon juice (about 3-4 medium lemons)
zest of 3 lemons
3 egg whites
1 egg
2/3 cup flour
pinch of salt, extra

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line and grease a 8x8 inch square baking dish.
To make the crust, cream together butter and sugar until light. Add the flour, vanilla and salt and mix until combined well. Do not over mix as this can make the base tough. Press the dough evenly into the bottom of the prepared baking dish. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until just golden brown. Remove from oven and cool.

To make the filling, place all thawed raspberries in a fine sieve and press them into a large bowl with the back of a spoon. Discard the caught seeds and skin. Add the sugar, juice, zest, whites, egg, flour and salt and combine, until well incorporated.
Pour the raspberry mixture onto the base and place in the oven. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Cool on the bench before placing in the refrigerator to set completely (about 3-4 hours) Cut and decorate as desired.

NOTES: This slice freezes well and makes a great dessert or afternoon tea to have handy for unexpected guests or dinner parties.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cheesecake Cups

When ever I see something miniature it does something to my insides. Seeing tiny baby shoes probably is one of the biggest weaknesses that makes me most gooey inside, and following those wee little accessories, mini cupcakes and delightfully delicious little morsels. Maybe it's because they're so devious and deceiving, making you think you could just pop a whole dozen of them into your mouth over a few minutes without any affect on your waistline. After all, they're just babies! They really couldn't be that fattening. Even five or six of them.
Actually, these little strawberry cheesecake chocolate cups caught my eye and made me smile because they couldn't be all that bad for you. Cream cheese, lemon, strawberry and a little dob of chocolate sprinkled with biscuit crumbs--you can't really go wrong here!They're the perfect petit four for any get together.
 Sadly due to the season, strawberries have been scarce and expensive, but I just had to make them despite all obstacles! Mind you, I ended up having to throw most of the berries out due to sogginess. I highly suggest making these in strawberry season when the berries are plump, firm and full of favour. It's well worth it, and they look super cute and are great little disassembled desserts for any party.

CHOCOLATE DIPPED STRAWBERRY CHEESECAKE CUPS (Adapted from Zestuous)

100g cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tsp lemon rind, grated finely
1-2 tbsp caster sugar
12 strawberries
80-100g compound chocolate
1 crushed biscuit (we used a scotch finger)

Combine the cream cheese, lemon zest and sugar. Add enough lemon juice until you reach a smooth and pipe-able consistency. Hull the strawberries, digging deep into the berry to make a sizeable well for the cream cheese mixture.Cut off the very bottoms of the strawberries so that they have a flat end with which to stand. Dry the bottoms of any juices (otherwise the chocolate will not stick). Melt the chocolate in the microwave 20 seconds at a time, stirring between intervals to ensure even melting, until a smooth consistency is reached. Dip the flat end of each berry in chocolate, and place on parchment paper to set.
White the chocolate is setting, fit a piping bag with a small star nozzle and fill with the cream cheese mixture. Pipe the mixture into each strawberry. Top with crushed biscuit. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve.

NOTES: If you refrigerate the berries after completing them, some of the red from the strawberries may leak into the cream cheese and discolour it.