Blueberry and Lemon Baked Cheesecake

The Great British/American Bake Off: Part 2
It's been a while since my last bake-off with Jess from Baking in Brooklyn, and so here we are back with part 2. The theme this time is...JAM. You can find Jess's rival Jam post HERE.

Now I was all set to roll out some jam tarts or a jam rolly-polly, when Jess let slip that she's going to make the jam first. As my friends will vouch I am a teeny bit competitive (I did nearly break my arm in a tense game of rounders when my competitive streak won out...) So I decided to rise to the challenge! I made Blueberry Jam, check out the recipe HERE.

Today the second part of the bake-off commenced. What to make with the jam? I opted for cheesecake, which I adapted from a Rose Eliot recipe for Baked Lemon Cheesecake.

Blueberry and Lemon Baked Cheesecake

Ingredients
100g ground almonds
15g butter, softened
400g soft cheese (2 tubs)
2 eggs
150ml double cream
grated rind of 1 lemon
2 tbsp Roxanne's Blueberry Jam

Blueberry Jam

My homemade blueberry jam

I'm not a fan of excessive sugar in cooking and the idea of putting the same amount of sugar as fruit in jam is just ridiculous! After a lot of internet research and a look through my cookbooks I turned to my new favourite book The SuperJam Cookbook. I adapted my recipe from one in there, where it advised using white grape juice in place of sugar.

Roxanne's Blueberry Jam

Ingredients

1 litre purple grape juice

400g blueberries

2 tbsp lemon juice

Courgette 'Lasagne'

This is a recipe that I made up. It is similar to a parmigiana but uses courgette slices instead of aubergine, and is like a lasagne, but instead of making a cheese sauce I topped it with Mozzarella slices. It's a brand new thing!

Ingredients
1 large courgette, sliced into 1cm thick pieces
1 teaspoon sunflower oil
1 large stick celery, chopped
1 can chopped tomatoes
50g Quorn mince
a small handful of watercress
10g basil, finely chopped
1 Mozzarella ball, sliced
1 tablespoon single cream

Low-Carb Bread Rolls

These are great for a light breakfast and take hardly anytime to make or bake!

Ingredients
75g ground almonds
pinch of salt
¼ tsp baking powder
1 tbsp olive oil
1 egg, beaten.

G is for... Gingerbread

I've baked from the beautiful Peyton and Byrne book before and when I was looking for a gingerbread recipe I found their 'Ginger and Black Treacle Bread' which didn't have loads of sugar or lots of butter so I thought I would give it a try. I've changed the recipe a bit and made it gluten-free.

Ingredients
125ml sunflower oil
100g soft brown sugar
175ml black treacle
50g fresh ginger, peeled and very finely chopped
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200g gluten-flour plain flour (or normal if you can)
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground cinnamon
3 eggs, beaten

Treacle Tarts

And for my 100th post...Treacle Tarts! Surely everyone loves a treacle tart, crumbly pastry with a sweet, textured centred. Perfect with a cup of tea or for an after dinner treat.

Ingredients

200g shortcrust pastry (see below for recipe or cheat with shop-bought)
125g golden syrup
grated rind of ½ lemon

2 tsp lemon juice
40g breadcrumbs (1 small slice)

Banana Pudding Cake

I was all set to make a plum cake for dessert yesterday when I remembered I can't eat plums. Or apples, or pears, or any of the fruit in the fruit bowl (it's a long story). I did have a banana though so decided to experiment with that. I made a plum cake for everyone else, it had halved plums cut side down on the bottom and sponge mixture on top. I'm told it tasted nice...

For myself, meanwhile, I made a kind-of upside-down banana cake/pudding thing!

F is for...Flapjack Cookies

I heart flapjack in a big way. I went to a music festival called Lounge on the Farm the weekend before last and a stall there had the best flapjack ever (and it only cost £1!), I think I had eaten about 5kg of the stuff before the weekend was out.
But there is one thing I don't like about flapjack, and that is the waiting for it to cool before you can cut it up and tuck in. What inevitably happens is I try and cut it too soon and it falls to pieces and I have a tantrum. Therefore, flapjack cookies are perfect, you can eat one fresh from the oven without jeopardizing the rest. Result.

Ingredients (makes about 40)
160g butter, softened
160g caster sugar
8 tbsp golden syrup
200g porridge oats
120g gluten-free self-raising flour
80g chocolate chips/peanut butter chips/butterscotch chips/raisins (optional)

New Challenge - World Baking

I have decided to focus my baking with another challenge; I am going to bake recipes from around the world. After all, who says you can't have more than one challenge on the go, I make the rules here...

I am going to make a recipe from 25 countries (one for each letter of the alphabet except 'x'). I'll be working my way through Europe, Asia, Australasia, Africa, South America and North America. I would really appreciate any ideas, particularly for some of the more obscure countries.

Look out for my first 'World Baking' post coming soon!

Here are the countries I have chosen:

Australia

Brazil

Canada

Denmark

Ecuador

Finland

Greece

Hungary

Ireland

Jamaica

Korea

Latvia

Morocco

New Zealand

Oman

Peru

Qatar

Romania

South Africa

Tunisia

United States

Vietnam

Wales

Yemen

Zimbabwe

E is for... Eggplant Parmigiana

There aren't many recipes beginning with 'E', not that I want to make anyway. Eggplant, or aubergine parmigiana is yummy, I've eaten it lots but never actually got round to making it. So here it is in week 5 of my Baking the Alphabet. Eggplant Parmigiana is a great vegetarian main course, serve it with a green salad and some fresh, crusty bread.

Ingredients (for 2 portions)
1 medium eggplant (about 250g)
700g passata or chopped tomatoes
10g fresh basil, shredded
1 ball mozzarella (125g), thinly sliced
20g Parmsesan, finely grated
50g gluten-free bread(crumbs)

Seeded Drop Rolls

This is bread-making as you've never seen before, in a matter of minutes these little rolls are ready. Now, they might look slightly odd, but who says it'll all about looks, it's what's inside that counts, right...

These are perfect if you need to bake something for a picnic and don't have time to make bread properly. They are good served with a little butter or cheese, or even on their own. 

Ingredients

225g gluten-free plain flour (or normal if you can)

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt and pepper

50g butter

1½ tbsp sunflower oil

185ml skimmed milk with a squeeze lemon juice (or 185ml buttermilk if you have it)

60g sunflower seeds

D is for... Digestive Biscuits

Week 4 of my 'Baking the Alphabet' was a tricky one. I was distinctively uninspired by the letter 'D'. I made Digestives as I'd not done them before and I wanted to see if I could be the next McVitie. Turns out probably not, the biscuits were nice, and could be eaten sweet or savoury as normal digestives, but they lacked a certain something...I'm inclined to blame the lack of wholemeal flour (I didn't have a gluten-free version), so if anyone makes them with wholemeal flour let me know how they taste!

Ingredients (makes 14)
100g gluten-free flour (if you can use 75g wholemeal flour/25g plain)
25g porridge oats
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp dark brown sugar
2 tsp caster sugar
50g butter
2 tbsp milk

Noodle Omelette

 I know this is not strictly baked at all...but you have to be controversial occasionally. Plus I didn't get chance to bake last night so I thought I'd share this quick and easy recipe. It's pretty yummy too!

Ingredients
1 tsp sunflower oil
1 tsp garlic-infused oil (or 1 garlic clove and an extra tsp sunflower oil)
2 sticks celery, finely chopped
1 small red pepper, chopped
1 small courgette, finely sliced
1 tbsp curly parsley, finely chopped
1 packet rice noodles (150g)
3 large eggs
2 tbsp milk
50g Cheddar cheese, grated

Banana Bread

I wanted to make a high-energy snack and settled on banana bread which I haven't made in ages. I found an old recipe, reduced the sugar quantity, used gluten-free flour and added some nuts. Banana bread is a great mid-morning snack, it has all the sweetness of a cake but with fruit and nuts for maximum health benefits.

Ingredients
125g butter, softened
125g soft brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
250g gluten-free, plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
125ml milk
3 bananas, mashed
50g Brazil nuts, chopped

C is for... Custard Tarts

Regular readers (and my friends) will know how much I LOVE custard. Egg custard tarts from Marks & Spencer are one of my favourite treats. So, I chose Custard Tarts for my 'C' in Baking the Alphabet. I found a recipe in The Great British Book of Baking for a 'Nutmeg Custard Tart'. I had bought some gluten-free pastry so I used that and just made the filling from the recipe. I altered it further by using crème fraîche instead of cream. BAD idea. It doesn't make a good filling, it goes lumpy and doesn't sieve well. Therefore, I'm giving you the original ingredients list from the book.

Ingredients

For the pastry:

175g plain flour

2 tbsp caster sugar

110g unsalted butter, chilled and diced

1 egg yolk, mixed with 2 tbsp ice-cold water

For the filling:

400ml single cream

200ml milk

ground nutmeg

2 eggs, plus 2 yolks

75g caster sugar

Spinach and Potato Mascarpone Gratin

It's savoury Sunday time, this recipe is a perfect vegetarian Sunday lunch alternative. I picked up the Good Housekeeping Step-by-Step Vegetarian Cookbook for a mere £2 at the weekend and this recipe sounded pretty tasty!

Ingredients (to serve 2)
2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into eighths
225g spinach, rinsed
knob of butter
125g mascarpone
75ml single cream
large pinch nutmeg
40g Cheddar cheese, grated

Rice Pudding

I'm staying with my gran this weekend, and after a discussion about what to have for dessert we both agreed a proper, baked rice pudding would do the trick. I found a recipe on BBC GoodFood and we popped to the shop for some pudding rice.

Ingredients (to serve 2)

50g pudding rice

25g sugar
350ml whole milk

ground nutmeg