From Ottolenghi, The Cookbook

I am so proud of myself! For my daughter´s 19th birthday I baked my first rather complicated cake and it tasted unbelievably delicious.

There is a bit of potential visual improvement left. Unfortunately I ran out of icing sugar. Generous dusting would have made a BIG difference, but I am living quite in the outskirts of Dortmund. Public transport here is close to non-existing, no shop is nearby, and for the last threee months I have coped without a car. So shopping has become a big issue. (Tomorrow I will get my new car!! I can´t believe it!)

Whatever, my daughter was blown away at the sight of my cake, and even more later, when we actually ate it. I brooded quite a while over the choice of the perfect cake and at last I opted for the caramel and macadamia cheesecake from the Ottolenghi cookbook. (I love this book. Every recipe I have tried so far was outstanding).

The cheesecake recipe was a bit intimidating, with two kinds of caramel, macadamia brittle and caramel sauce for the topping, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy.

Ingredients:

Batter

600 g cream cheese at room temperature

120 g caster sugar (I used 100 g)

1/2 vanilla pod

4 eggs, lightly beaten

icing sugar for dusting

Base

160 g bisquits

40 butter, melted

Nut brittle

150 g macadamia nuts

90 g caster sugar

Caramel sauce

65 g butter

160 g caster sugar

100 ml whipping cream

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 140°C (285°F), grease a 20 cm loose base cake tin

2. Whiz the bisquits in a food processor (or put in a plastic bag and bash with a rolling pin or whatever heavy thing you have at hand). Add the melted butter and mix to a wet, sandy consistency. Put the mixture in the tin and flatten with a spoon.

3. Put sugar and cream cheese in a big bowl and whisk (by hand or with an electric mixer). Split the vanilla pod, scrape the seeds out and add to the sugar-cream cheese mixture. Add the eggs one by one, mix until smooth and creamy. Pour the batter over the bisquit base and place in the oven for about 60-70 minutes (my cake needed 80 min. until the wooden skewer came out clean) Chill for a couple of hours on the baking tin base. You can remove the cake more easily when it is completely cool and set.

4. For the nut brittle scatter the macadamias over a baking sheet and put them to the cake in the oven for about 15 minutes until golden brown. Line a baking tray with baking parchment. Place the sugar in a large saucepan. The layer of sugar must not be more than 3 mm high in the pan. Heat gently until the sugar melts. It took me about 15 minutes before anything happened in the pan. Do not stir!! Watch careful until the sugar browns. It should be golden brown but not too dark. Add the nut and carefully mix with a wooden spoon until most of the nuts are coated with the liwuid sugar. Pour them onto the baking tray and leave until the brittle hardened. Chop very roughly.

5. To make the sauce, put butter and sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and stir constantly over medium heat with a wooden spoon until it becomes a dark brown caramel. Be careful not to burn. Add the cream and stir vigorously. Leave to cool.

6. To finish the cake, dust it generously with icing sugar. Spoon the sauce in the middle of the cake, allow it to spill over. Scatter the nut brittle on top.

The cake will keep in the fridge for 3 days.

(Don´t be concerned. Your pans may look like a battlefield but they aren´t actually ruined. Just fill them with water and boil until the caramel has melted.)

I´m sending this post to Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen who is hosting High Tea Treats, the theme of Meeta’s Monthly Mingle

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