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Category: Household Tutorials

This category is random tutorials and descriptions of ways to make life easier running a household, dealing with bills, electricity and gas providers and other necessary evils of domestic life that take up your time, energy and life.

Cheapest and easiest cheesecake with solid biscuit base

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Cheesecakes are among the easiest cakes to make at home, and produce very impressive professional Berry_cheesecake_home_madelooking results.

A common recipe is to use crushed shop bought biscuits for a crumbly, loose base at the bottom of the pan.

That looks like too much work to me!

I’m quite a fan of shortbread, and incidentally, it makes an incredibly good base for a cheesecake-

Instead of crushing up packets and packets of  fairly ordinary tasting biscuits, par baking some awesome shortbread tartshells for your cheesecake yourself can produce a much more impressive result.

Adjusting the amount of sugar in the recipe will result in a harder, or softer, more crumbly base effect: more sugar= harder, less = crumbly and buttery.

Makes up to 2 large 30cm tart pan cheesecakes.

Ingredients:

Shortbread:cheesecake_base_cream_butter_sugar

225 gms Butter

110 gms Rice flour

125 gms Raw, or caster sugar (raw is cheaper)WP_20160818_17_10_21_Pro

260 gms sifted plain flour.

Method:

  1. Soften butter in the microwave for 30 seconds or so in a large mixing bowl.shortbread_cheesecake_base_big_flan_tart
  2. Introduce sugar, creaming the butter with the sugar
  3. Tip in rice flour, combining well
  4. Gradually add in flour, mixing well.
  5. The mixture should be slightly dry, crumbly, and certainly  not doughy in appearance; and the crumbles should not have a greasy sheen.
  6. Spread crumbly mixture into tart trays, pressing shortbread_cheesecake_base_small_tartdown firmly to create a smooth surface that is around 5-7mm thick.
  7. Lay extra crumbles around the edges of the pan, pressing firmly against the edge, form a crust of 3-6mm thick.
  8. Bake at 180 degrees for ~25 minutes, till golden brown.shortbread_cheesecake_base_finished_product_big_smallshortbread_cheesecake_base_method_part2

 

 

 

 

Cheesecake:

Ricotta cheese, available at most supermarket deli counters, at $7-$9/Kg is cheaper and produces a better result, but packaged mascarpone or phillidelphia can also be used

Ingredients:

700gms ricotta cheese

100gms sugar

3 large eggs

400gms berries, cherries or chopped fruit

Maple_pear_cheesecakeAlternate fillings can be oranges, pears, apples and cinnamon, drissled with maple syrup

Method:

  1. Crack 3 eggs into a large mixing bowl.
  2. Break egg yolks with a fork, and scramble.
  3. Add in sugar and cheese.chilli_maple_syrup_ricotta_cheesecake
  4. Mix thoroughly, consistency of egg/cheese should be liquidy and sloppy, like thick Greek yoghurt.
  5. pour cheese mix into par baked shortbread tartshells, whose tart pans have not been removed.
  6. Sprinkle fruit over surface of cheese filling liberally, patting down where necessary.
  7. Bake filled shells for 35-45 minutes at 180 degrees, or until exposed fruit looks jammy and sticky.

Let cool on racks, and pop tarts out of the pans when warm, but not hot.berrry_maple_syrup_pear_chilli_cheesecake_ricotta

 

 

 

 

 

Making home brewed ginger beer- how to start a plant.

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So, you want to make ginger beer at home?

The good news, is that its easy, cheap and fun.

Sadly, it takes a bit of dedication and patience to start a plant.

There is not much to breeding a ginger beer organism from scratch, though its a lot easier to just get a sample of the yeast culture forma Friend already doing it if you can.

What you need for a ginger beer plant starter culture:

Ingredients:

  • 6 good quality raisins or sultanas.
  • 2 teaspoons of sugar
  • 20ml of water
  • One clean 700ml, wide mouthed glass jar with lid. (An italian passata tomato sauce jar is ideal)
  • One spare glass jar (optional)
  • 50 ml Vinegar

Method:

Cleanliness and the integrity of the yeast source is VERY important at this stage.

THe objective of this exercise is too culture a dominant strain of wild champagne yeast, derived from grape skins. There are a lot of wild yeasts in the environment, which wont produce such a pleasant flavour, and good hygiene should minimise the chance of raising the wrong organisms.

  1. Take your glass jar, and either fill it with boiling water, or stick it in the oven
  2. Do the same with the lid.
  3. The jar may crack under temperature, so be careful.
  4. Let stand for at least 5 minutes, then tip out the hot water.
  5. Pour vinegar in the jar, put on the lid, and shake.
  6. Tip out vinegar, and rinse jar with boiling water again.
  7. Put 2 teaspoons of sugar in the jar, dissolve sugar with some boiling water, let stand till like warm.
  8. Drop in 6 raisins or sultanas.
  9. Close the lid loosely
  10. Wait 5 days.

By this stage, the yeast in the grapes should have begun feeding on the sugar in the weakly sweet solution the raisins have been bathed in, and when opening the lid, the mix should smell “yeasty”

Finally, top up the jar 400ml of  cool, sterile water that has been boiled recently.

To give your newly born ginger beer plant its first ever feed, tip in a tablespoon of dry powdered ginger, and a tablespoon of sugar  to start the ginger beer making process.

You will need to feed your new pet this special diet of sugar and ginger for at least 5 days before harvesting to make your brew.

Over time, the amount of sediment and organism in the jar will build up quickly, indicating your new pet is growing up big and strong.

 

 

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