The ugliest cake ever!

Here's a little story about me and cheesecake =]

One of the first cheesecakes I had (I haven't had many) was the blueberry cheesecake from the Cheesecake shop. It was about $7 for a quarter of the cake-back then our family thought that was pretty expensive considering the fact that we usually only pay around $15 for birthday cakes at Asian bakeries. I know, they're different cakes...but STILL! And I still thought it was expensive until this story:

Here's another story about me and cheesecake:

When I borrowed Donna Hay's "Fruit" Cookbook from the library and saw the blueberry swirl cheesecake, I knew I had to make it. It looked almost the same as the blueberry cheesecake we always get from the Cheesecake shop. And the recipe was so simple! All I had to do was to put everything into the food processor, dump it into the pan and bake for an hour!

Like all things I really wanted to make, I had to wait a couple of weeks before I actually got around to doing them because I had exams =[ So by the time I get to make it, I was very very excited.

I bought all my ingredients a couple of days before I was planning to make it. All except the blueberries. Our family doesn't usually eat blueberries so we decided to get fresh ones....because fresh is generally better right?

And a lot more expensive.

It costed $6 for a 125 punnet of blueberries!!!!! It didn't help either that they went on special the following day...to $4.50. Together with the cost of all the other ingredients (because we don't store cream cheese, sour cream or almonds at home....) it cost more than $10 to make this cake! And that's only for HALF the recipe!

So $7 for 1/4 of a cheesecake is pretty okay!

_____

Okay, so that wan't much of a story.....

Here's something about the cake:

It didn't turn out quite as I had expected- as the title suggest, this is one of the ugliest cakes I've ever made.anyone have any ideas why the picture turned out sideways??

So it's SUPPOSED to be a blueberry swirl cheesecake. Only, it didn't turn out as pretty swirls because of my lack of swirling skills. And it was very wrinkly. And it tasted nothing like the cake we usually get from the Cheesecake shop which is much more like a chilled cheesecake, only it says that it's baked....This one tastes like baked cheesecake- like the ones you get from cafes. And for $10? It was worth it! It was so rich and addictive! Next time I'll probably buy frozen blueberries because I don't think it really makes a difference....

Here's what happened:

I made this on the same day I was making the milk loaf because I thought the timing would fit perfectly- I could make this while I was waiting for the bread to prove. The timing didn't turn out as perfect as I wanted it to be and I ended up standing around in the kitchen for a couple of hours......

One of the interesting things about this recipe is that the base does not use digestive biscuits but uses shortbread instead. This was perfect for me because I had a packet of shortbread from AGES ago which no-one in our family likes because it was a werid brand. I had to buy some almonds to make the base because we don't usually eat almonds but since then I have developed a liking for them. Because the recipe calls for ground almonds, I processed them in my food processor- it's SO FUN!

I had equally as much fun processing the blueberries because they splattered all over container thing and it looked really cool! Unfortunately, the blueberry puree seeped into some gaps of the container thing and I have not been able to get it out =[ The actual cheesecake part was quite boring though- even when i used an electric mixer instead of mixing it in a food processor.

When I assembled the cake, I realised I'd cooked the blueberry puree for too long and it was too thick to swirl properly. So the swirls looked more like weird lines than swirls. I baked it for an hour and when i took it out, it was all wobbly- kinda llike jelly. It took AGES to cool and when it did, it didn't taste any good because it was still wet. Feeling quite disappointed, I put it back in the fridge. I tried it again the following day and.......it was so GOOD!

It was still quite ugly though. This was about the prettiest photo I could get:

Not pretty at all is it??

Nevertheless, it tasted really nice and I will no doubt be making this again in the near future.

And here's the recipe. incase, you want to make it too =]

BLUEBERRY SWIRL CHEESECAKE

apparently from Donna Hay Modern Classic #2 but I found it in 'Fruit'

Ingredients:

220g (7 1/2 oz) fresh or frozen blueberries
1/2 cup caster sugar
85g (2 1/2 oz) shortbread biscuits
1/2 cup almond meal
45g (1 1/2 oz) butter
600g (20oz) cream cheese
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Process berries in a food processor and press through a sieve (you should have about 1/2 cup puree) Place the puree & sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stir until sugar is dissolved. Rapidly simmer for 8 minutes or until thick. Set aside to cool

To make the base, process the bisucits (cookies) in a food processor until crushed Add the almond meal & butter, process until combined. Grease a 22cm (9in) springform tin and line the base with non-stick baking paper. Press the crumb mixture over the base and refrigerate. Preheat oven to 140deg (280 F).

To make the filling, process the cream cheese in a food processor until smooth, add the sour cream, eggs, sugar and vanilla, process until combined & smooth.

Pour the cream cheese mixture over the base. Drizzle the blueberry mixture over and using a butter knife gently swirl the mixture just through the top of the cream cheese mixture. Bake for 1 hour or until set. Refrigerate and serve cold.

If anyone is interested, this is post number 3!!! And it's a whole week late. Oops.