Candy Bar Pie - - Home Sweet Home Bake Along (24/100)

Things you learn from baking through a book: 1) The author's penchant for certain foods - Home Sweet Home indicates Tarek Malouf is probably a fan of nuts. Peanuts particularly.

2) That some of the recipes are take-offs or variations on other recipes in the book - here the "Candy Bar Pie" is another peanut butter cheesecake - this time without the gelatine, and baked.

3) That you can reuse the things you had leftover from last time for the next derivative bake - with this bake, instead of sprinkling on chopped salted peanuts, I applied a layer of leftover peanut brittle from the peanut butter cheesecake.

4) The authors' blind spots - Home Sweet Home has several recipes where the topping is far beyond what you could ever use - with the peanut butter cheesecake I was swimming in peanut brittle,

with this, the chocolate ganache was so vast a quantity that my cheesecake looks somewhat ridiculous when compared to the light, abstract design in the picture.

On the whole, though, this is a pretty solid bake, and is by far the better of the two peanut butter cheesecakes in this book!

Ingredients:
Crust:
125g oreos
125g digestive biscuits (I used all dark chocolate digestives)
150g unsalted butter (I substituted 75g of butter for 75g of dark chocolate and 2 tsp chocolate-hazelnut spread)
Filling:
3 Snickers bars (I used the "standard" ones - the sort you would pick up from a newsagent)
230g full fat cream cheese
100g caster sugar
80g soured cream
140g crunchy peanut butter
2 large eggs
Topping:
140g dark chocolate chips (I only used 100g and this was still excessive)
2 tablespoons double cream
50g salted peanuts, roughly chopped



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Mint Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies - Home Sweet Home Bake Along (23/100)

These are cute, crumbly, cookies, with a little pools of ganache in their centres. A nice simple bake, that can be thrown together quickly and easily.

To make them even easier, the thumbprint and ganache could be omitted - one of my cookies disintigrated in transfer from baking sheet to wire rack, so I consumed the evidence, and can confirm the plain cookie was rather pleasant.

The ganache would be my only criticism of these cookies - it involves 1.5 tablespoons of cream being heated to boiling. This is an annoying quantity of cream. (A peek ahead to next week involves 2 tablespoons of cream being heated. Humph)

The application of the ganache is fiddly, but satisfying.

Ingredients:
For the cookies
60g dark chocolate
110g unsalted butter, softened
40g caster sugar
1 tbsp soft dark brown sugar
1 large egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1tsp peppermint essence
125g plain flour
30g cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
40g demerara sugar (recipe says 75g, I weighed out 50g, and there was at least 10g leftover)

For the filling
40g white chocolate, roughly chopped
1+1/2 tbsp double cream
1 tsp peppermint essence




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Peanut Butter Cheesecake - Home Sweet Home Bake Along (22/100)

I have to say, I'm not convinced on this recipe - it is a very soft set for a cheesecake, despite using gelatine. (Mrs B found the same thing so I'm pretty sure it's not my ineptitude this time.)

Then we need to talk about the 4 raw egg yolks in the cheese part. Why are they there? What do they do? (Apart from make this cheesecake unsuitable for pregnant women, and make me nervous about serving it to friends?) I think if I'd been planning this more I would have omitted them - they don't add anything, and I doubt anyone would notice their absence.

Then of course there is the enormous volume of peanut praline (more than twice what was needed, even with my generous application.)

The cheesecake is not unpleasant, and I love it as a concept, but I'm not sure it works in practice. The crunchy peanut butter goes kind of soggy, and the peanuts aren't really crunchy - I think a smooth peanut butter would give a better texture and more even flavour.

I'm afraid I probably won't be repeating this one though, there are better cheesecakes out there!

Ingredients:

For the base:
200g nutty chocolate chip biscuits (I used a packet of hazelnut and chocolate chip cookies)
75g unsalted butter, melted

For the cheesecake topping:
400g full fat cream cheese
150g caster sugar
4 large egg yolks (see comments above)
6 leaves of gelatine
150g crunchy peanut butter (see comments above)
250ml double cream

For the peanut brittle (makes far more than needed):
100g unsalted roasted peanuts (where sells *un*salted roasted peanuts?? I used salted ones, they worked just fine, and actually tied the whole "peanut butter" thing in better)
200g caster sugar
50ml water




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Blueberry and Amaretti Trifle Cupcakes - Home Sweet Home Bake Along (21/100)

Apart from being unseasonal (blueberry season is not for a wee while yet), these turned out to be an excellent cupcake for this weekend.

I have been to visit Mama and Papa. Papa is a fan of cake in most manifestations, but a blueberry muffin, with a bit of an homage to trifle and with just a hint of almond seems to have gone down well.

Mama and I have to keep counting the cupcakes to deter sudden disappearances.

Fearing the scrambled eggs phenomenon, I undercooked my custard initially (it was very liquid, and still had a delightful cornflour mouthfeel *bleurgh*) so reboiled it and it thickened beautifully. A whisk is essential - a spatula or spoon will result in lumps.

I'm not usually a trifle fan - I find it a rather strange experience. Think about it, you soak stale cake in alcohol to try and disguise its staleness, then add squashed fruit, and cover the whole lot in cold custard. I'm sure that is as controversial as the whole scone debate last summer, but if you can't be controversial about food, when can you be?

These cupcakes are good though - the best parts of trifle - but no stale sponge.

Ingredients:
Cupcakes:
70g unsalted butter, at room temperature
210g plain flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
250g caster sugar
210ml whole milk
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract (the original recipe only uses vanilla extract, but I felt it needed something to tie the amaretti flavours into the sponge
150g blueberries (I used frozen, as April isn't really blueberry season, unless of course it's strawberries that have turned blue because of the cold #soundofmusicreference... and yes... I just used a hashtag in a blog)
Custard Cream:
330ml whole milk
3 large egg yolks
60g caster sugar
20g plain flour
20g cornflour
150ml double cream

Decoration:
75g blueberries (I omitted these, because, as you might have seen me mention, it is not blueberry season and frozen blueberries would go all smudgy)
50g amaretti biscuits, crushed into fine crumbs



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