Friday 29 March 2013

Making Pasta Dough


1 1/2 cups of unbleached flour
1/4 cup semolina flour
1 tsp salt in a bowl.
1 tsp olive oil
2 eggs
Preparing your pasta dough:

You can make a well in the center and prepare the dough in the bowl, or dump it out on a floured cutting board and prepare your dough there.
Add 1 tsp olive oil and one whole egg into the well. Holding a fork at an angle parallel to the table, stir the egg mixture quickly and let the flour fall into it from the sides. Keep stirring this way until you have formed a sticky dough ball. You will probably have leftover flour, so only use what you need.
Dump the dough ball onto a floured surface and knead, incorporating more flour into the dough as needed, until the dough is smooth, elastic, even in color and no longer sticky.
To knead the dough, push down on the ball with the heel of your hand, then give the dough a quarter turn, fold it over onto itself and push away from you again with the heel of your hand. Keep turning and pushing until you achieve the desired consistency - this usually takes approximately 10 minutes.
Once you have finished kneading, wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let rest at room temperature for 30-60 minutes.

Saturday 23 March 2013

Cheesecake

150 grams crushed digestive biscuits

1 tablespoon (15 grams) granulated white sugar

60 grams melted butter

Filling:

250 grams of full fat cream cheese, room temperature

1/4 cup granulated white sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 large eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup (120 ml) sour cream, room temperature

1/4 cup of lemon juice

Blueberry Sauce Recipe:

200g blueberry

1/2 cup granulated white sugar

2 stars anise

a pinch of cinnamon

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon of butter

Method
For cheesecakes:
Preheat oven to 150 degrees C.
Line 12 muffin cups with paper or foil liners.

For Crust:
In a small bowl combine crushed digestive biscuits, sugar and melted butter. Press a heaping tablespoon of crumbs onto the bottoms of the 12 muffin cups. Cover and refrigerate while you make the filling.

For Filling: In the bowl of your electric mixer beat the cream cheese on low speed until creamy and smooth. Add the sugar and salt and beat until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the egg, vanilla extract and sour cream until incorporated. Remove the crusts from the refrigerator and evenly divide the filling among the 12 muffin cups.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until firm but the centers of the cheesecakes still wobble a little. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack. Let cool and then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

Blueberry sauce:
Cook the blueberry with butter and sweet, stirring constantly (to prevent burn) until the mixture becomes thick. This will take approximately 10 minutes. Let cool until it of pouring consistency.