No-Bake Vanilla Cheesecake with Passionfruit

For the last night at our house in Nottingham I thought it would be nice to make a large meal we could all share and eat together. A couple of weeks before hand Pete and I made a lamb hotpot and it was love at first taste...rich, slightly sweet, melt in the mouth and just packed with flavour. One of the other housemates tried a forkful and was rather envious to say the least, the noises that he made were..to be honest..slightly disturbing! He was absolutely adamant we had to make it again as our goodbye meal, along with the homemade garlic bread that went with it perfectly. So we did! And the pudding for this meal is the recipe I am dying to share with you today :)

The same housemate has been bugging me all year for me to make a passionfruit cheesecake. He is not a big sweet eater but said he tried a version of this dessert in a restaurant long ago and the memory of it had remained with him ever since..I had promised him I would give it a good go, no pressure on recreating a favourite hey! My instructions were that it must have a plain cheesecake base, a no-bake basic filling and a passionfruit topping. So off I set trying to find something that would live up to his expectations..

Oreo Cheesecake-Pie

 Firstly, just to clear up the kind of funny name, this lovely dessert was originally called (Creamy) Oreo Pie. Apart from being made in a pie dish this was, in my opinion, in no way a pie..it was a cheesecake! A delicious refreshing no-bake cheesecake..in a pie dish. I got too many people asking/cheekily mocking about this being a 'pie' to not make a little change of name :)

Now thats over! On to the important stuff. This by FAR exceeded my expectations. I like Oreos as much as the next person but, as you might do, wondered how such a simple recipe with so few ingredients could make anything particularly noteworthy, nice maybe..but not very memorable. How wrong I was! This was definitely noteworthy, and so so easy that I will not hesitate to make it again in the future if I need a last minute impressive dessert that looks like it took hours to make :)

Mini Bakewell Tarts

I'm not really sure how to go about this post. I have not been baking or posting as much as I would like recently and there are a few reasons for this which I feel I should probably share with you lovely people that for some reason continue to delight me with your presence on my blog :)

Earlier this year, a few months before I started food blogging, my Dad very sadly passed away. He had had a lot of heart attacks in the past (11 in fact, he was a walking miracle!) but since a triple by-pass in 1998 he seemed to be absolutely fine. On the 9th February this year, my Mum and her partner turned up on my doorstep in University just before midnight, sat me down, and told me that he had been found at his home on the sofa, with his newspaper in hand (he always did the daily cryptic crossword, my Mum still has the paper from the day of my birth and he somehow managed to complete it whilst she was in labour!) and my little sausage dog Penny rather anxiously by his side. He had suffered a massive heart attack and most likely knew nothing about it, the only comfort really is that if he could have chosen that is probably how he would have wanted to go, content and at home. It has taken some time to sink in, well in all honesty I don't think it truly has yet. He left me as a main executor of his will so recently I have been rather busy dealing with a lot of legal stuff that mostly goes over my head in all honesty! We unfortunately have no option but to part with the house, so I have had to learn rather fast about equity releases, mortgages, solicitors/estate agents and their fees (greedy bums.) etc and this means I have had a lot less time to do what has been my distraction, rather successfully!, for the past few months - baking of course :)

Brandy Snaps

Brandy Snap's - they are an absolute classic and I truly believe they are a great last minute dessert to master that can be whipped up faster than any other cookie with only one dirty saucepan, a lazy bakers dream :) They can be customised to your hearts desire and, although it admittedly took me pretty much until my last batch to perfect the method, now I know the tricks they really are soooooo very easy to make. We ate them ALL the day I made them, so I made another batch the morning after as we are greedy Welshies and second time round, now I knew what I was doing, resulted in 15 uniform tubes (much better than my first go which resulted in 3 pretty ones, 4 passable ones, 3 slightly fat rejects, 1 pretty cup, 1 reject cup and 3 that we just should talk about) 

In all seriousness, if you have shied away from trying them before now I assure you, they are so much fun and you can definitely make these!

Oh yes, and they are SO VERY ADDICTIVE :)

Blueberry Cheese Danish Cake

Let me begin by saying this didn't turn out quitteee like it was meant to...I mean if you check out the original recipe's photos it's an absolute beauty! Mine isn't HALF as pretty, but I ain't complaining my friends 'cos the taste is alllll there :) It is a recipe who's aim is to simulate the flavours of a danish cream-cheese pastry...in a cake...yes please!

The noises my Mum made when she first started eating this cake were, well to put it bluntly, noises i'd rather not hear my mother making. There was so much ooh-ing and aah-ing going on I didn't know whether to just be flattered or to take the cake away from her to save my innocent ears. Quote: 'mmmmm, it's so melt in your mouth! This is definitely to be put on the make again list!' Like I need asking to make this again, I only made it 7 hours ago and half of it has gone...woops

Apple Almond Tart

My oh my, if there were any words that would convince you to try out this tart then I wish I could find them right now! I didn't have many expectations when it came to trying this recipe, sure I thought it looked nice but it was more a scrummy looking recipe tried out of necessity than one out of long-term lusting. After making the Hazelnut Brown Butter Cake I was left with 6 dinky little egg yolks just begging to be utilised in some comforting sweet. Im not sure why I opted for this one in the end...maybe the pastry addicted gremlin in my brain working its magic, but I truly am so so happy it won out

Hidden Berry Cream Cheese Torte

I've had my eye on this little gem of a recipe for a crazziiilyy long time. I'd never made a cheesecake in any form (unless cheesecake stuffed cookies count :) ) and was dying to pop my cheesecake cherry. The Brown Eyed Baker is one of my favourite food blogs to get lost in with page after page of pure temptation and gorgeous recipes, so when this torte was featured for a second time, now in her Top 10 Favourite Cake list, I knew I just had to make it. Sadly I did not own the correct pan or a springform in any shape or size so simply sat pining after it for far too long. Big news...my house is a springform free zone NO LONGER! I finally went out and invested in my new love, I get irrationally excited about kitchen purchases...I hope this isn't just me and you arn't reading this thinking I'm a total weirdo

Onto the torte, its good. Reaaaalll good. A thick buttery shortbread crust with a fruity jam layer spread over the top which blends into a generous amount of smooth cream cheese filling. There's no skimping in this recipe and that's just my cuppa tea :) However it isn't as sinful as you may think, low fat cream cheese and low fat cottage cheese cut the dreaded calorie count (life's too short to think about such things, but it's always nice if that 3rd hunk of a slice is a little less guilt ridden)

Lemon Meringue Cake

Yup, you read that right, lemon meringue cake :) I have yet to attempt making the godly thing that is the lemon meringue pie (definitely on the to-do list) but this morning, whilst pondering over what scrummy little thing to rustle up, found this recipe I bookmarked so long ago I don't even recall and just knew this was the one for me! It's a little more involved than the oh-so divine Raspberry Bakewell Cake I whipped up the other day as it combines 3 different parts, but each separate bit is really very easy to do, so while it takes a little longer its no more stressful and well worth the mini extra effort :)

I was so happy with how this one turned out! It's just the cutest little snowball/cloud like cake and would make a lovely dinner party dessert 'n the such. It isn't a fabulous keeper though, so I wouldn't make it if there was any chance it was going to hang around for more than two/three days. Each part tastes wonderful in its own right; the base is a dreamy basic vanilla sponge which you slather in a silly amount of creamy tangy lemon curd, and if that wasn't enough there is a mahooosive amount of silky fluffy meringue to get through first :) It's definitely not a cake that does things by halves, and this is finnnnee with me!

Chez Panisse Almond Tart

Please don't let the less than perfect appearance of my attempt of this lovely tart put you off, yours will be much prettier I promise! Read on for my excuses reasons :)

Since I've been on such a foodie love fest recently (cinnamon..lemons..coconut..) I was going to continue this theme and call or start this post with 'I love nuts', but luckily better judgement won through, suspect google searches might well have brought some interesting visitors to my blog!

Back to the topic in hand, this is the infamous 'Chez Panisse Almond Tart'. Possibly the most involved recipe I have yet attempted but by no means hard, you just have to watch over it like a doting parent making sure it doesn't misbehave too badly. If you have not come across this recipe before, it is the creation of the head pastry chef/co-owner of the Chez Panisse Restaurant in California at which the wonderful and inspirational David Lebovitz worked. It was their most popular dessert by far, but was essentially a pain in the butt to make on a larger scale and tricky to eat with a fork. PLEASE don't be put off, the end product more than makes up for it! David states 'it’s the most delicious thing I’ve probably ever had. And I’ve had a lot of things that were delicious', from him..thats incredibly high praise indeed

I actually really enjoyed making this once I realised the process wasn't as difficult as I expected. I have to say it didn't turn out QUITE as I wanted but that is purely because of my oven, or should I say lack of oven...this is my dirty little secret ive been keeping from you. We have an aga which is turned off in the summer, so Im ashamed to say all my baking in warmer months is done in a combination microwave oven *insert sad, embarrassed face* It looks like a normal microwave but has an oven function inbuilt which is handy but it tends to cook too fast around the edges compared to the centre - hence the overdone outside and underdone middle! But this should, if anything, reassure you - if I can produce a remotely yummy edible good then you can definitely do it! And yours will be much prettier than mine :)