The Sugar Bar

As you all know, my time on the blog has gotten very much shorter and the time to try new recipes and invent chocolate truffle combinations has been almost obliterated by the massive workload I have to complete. If I intend to save my degree, it’s all got to be done and The Sugar Bar has, unfortunately, to be placed on the backburner for a while. Nevertheless, I will update regularly (as much as I can) with some interesting pictures and places/little bits to eat. I won’t be gone completely of course. You see me on Twitter way too much.

The lovely Naomi, of BakersRoyale, noticing my struggle was very kind enough to suggest guest-posting for me and created a beautiful bit of heaven in the shape of a mini cake, all in the essence of a person with limited time and kitchen space.

I met Naomi, or actually I found her, through one of the cake posts she submitted to Foodgawker and boy, did I gawk. Her cakes are stunning, little bits of art to be honest and all so meticulously put together. And I bet they taste as divine as they look – always quivering on my laptop screen, tempted to plop right out of it straight onto my dessert plate. She’s truly inspiring and such an easy-going person, we got along straightaway! In fact, sometimes I do wonder if she’s actually a twin of mine. We’re on the same wavelength. But enough of my chitter-chatter, let me give you Naomi! Here’s what she said:

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SoNo’s No Bake Cheesecake ~ A no bake cheesecake dressed up in a pistachio crumb and topped with some fresh raspberries.

This famous cheesecake is from John Barricelli’s SoNo Bakery in Connecticut and is featured in his SoNo Bakery book. After trying several no bake cheesecakes, this is hands down the best-period.

The bits of lemon and orange zest give the cheesecake a citrus balance that will refresh your palate with every bite. Add the pistachio crumb and the raspberries and this cheesecake moves from delicious to heavenly.

Aside from taste, the other reason I love this version of a no-bake cheesecake is John Barricelli’s use of gelatin to help set it. Now while he describes the finishing mixture as a mousse, I find the finishing mixture more similar to a baked cheesecake. No-bake versions tend to be very light and where this recipe not only has the velvety texture of a baked cheesecake, but it also has enough weight for every bite to be well tasted, rather than submitting and dissipating on contact.

I miniaturized this dessert into two inch mini cheesecakes the original recipe calls for a 9 inch pastry ring. If you don’t have one, a springform pan will work just as well.

SoNo’s No Bake Cheesecake
Ingredients

Crust:
1 1/2 cup crushed graham cracker
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
7 tablespoon unsalted butter(melted)

Cheesecake:
¼ cup water
1 tablespoon powdered gelatin
2 ¼ cups heavy cream
1 pound cream cheese, room temperature (at least six hours)
2/3 sugar
1 teaspoon coarse salt
Grated zest of orange
Grated zest of lemon
2 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
¾ sour cream

For assembly
1 cup pistachios, shelled and finely chopped
2 cups raspberries

For the crust:

1. Combine graham cracker crumbs with sugar.
2. Add melted butter and blend until combined.
3. Press into pan. Set aside.

For the cheesecake:

1. Bring 1 inch of water to a simmer in the bottom of a double boiler. Sprinkle water over gelatin and let stand for 5 minutes.
2. Using a spatula scrape the softened gelatin and place it into the top of the double boiler. Set it over simmering water and heat until the mixture becomes liquid. Remove from heat and set aside.
3. Using the whisk attachment of a stand mixer, beat the cream to medium peaks. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.
4. Replace whisk attachment with a paddle. Wash out bowl. Add cream cheese, sugar, salt, lemon and orange zest and lemon juice in mixer bowl and beat on medium high speed until the mixture is smooth, about 5 minutes.
5. Add a dollop of cream mixture to the gelatin and fold with a rubber spatula. Return the gelatin mixture to the remaining cream cheese mixture and fold together.
6. Scrap the new mousse mixture into pastry rings or springform. Smooth the top and cover with plastic. Freeze for at least four hours or overnight to set.
7. Remove cake. The cake will have a slight sunken center. Using spread sour cream on top as if icing a cake to even out the top.
8. To remove from pastry ring, use a hot towel and wrap it around the ring. You may have to do this twice.
9. Don’t worry about the uneven sides as it will be covered with the pistachio crumb.

To assemble:

Cover sides with pistachio crumb and garnish top with raspberries.

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Hope you liked Naomi’s post as much as I did! If you want more, jump over to her blog here.

If anyone’s been wondering where I’ve been, or why I haven’t been as ‘sociable’ on Twitter and blogs, please do not be offended. I’m at the moment rushing one last paper that was given to us over the Easter break and it’s been taking up more time than I expected. The arguments are in my head but we’re sort of getting nowhere. Ideas aren’t transforming into words which is a real pain as you writers out there will know. Pen’s bleeding all over the paper but I’m as eloquent as a duck. It’s not even writers’ block really. What would you call this – writers’ constipation?

I promise I’ll be back on the game give another week. Paper’s due on 6th of May and thereafter, I’ll be back with twice the enthusiasm, banter and general nutter-ness as per usual. Have a great weekend everyone and Happy May Day!

Here’s a little something to keep your eyes busy – one part of a new lunchbox I bought from Paperchase yesterday (about time I got a cute one over the functional clip-and-lock bollocks I’ve got in the pantry cupboard) – seasoned rice with sansai vegetables, pickles and sakura denbu. Yes the latter’s the pink fluffy powder you see there and it’s made from codfish. Brilliant, no?

The Sugar Bar is my baby and the cellulite of my life. I can’t get rid of it no matter how hard I try. Can’t stop loving or working at it either. I’d feel completely lost without it. Blogging’s become such second nature, it’s almost impossible to recall what I used to do to past the time before I started foodblogging in 2005. And that was just one of the things us Tea Ladies, Mowie from Mowielicious and Su-Yin from Bread et Butter, discussed at our Ottolenghi lunch last Sunday.

We spent a sleepy morning queueing for a table at the Islington branch and whilst it was rather a long wait, we were given sustenance to make the wait less torturous in the form of cheesey breadsticks. Why torturous? Torturous because Ottolenghi’s yummy fare was within ridiculously close range. Torturous because you couldn’t just sneak a bit of bread (even if you were the best fingersmith of East London) when we standing next to it. Torturous because we were starving and no one (not a single one of them satisfied customers bums stuck firmly to their chairs) was getting up to leave…just yet. (Word of advice: be prepared to queue. It just kept going from 12 all til 3ish pm)

However, that all went and we were ushered to a table. I really like Ottolenghi’s service. Of course, they’ve got some stone-faced matron types but their staff’s generally really friendly and amicable. And they aren’t afraid to chat to you and take part in a bit of banter. Always a plus to any café/restaurant. A fair amount of time passed in complete silence – the food voyeurs were weighing up the menu. And we thought it good. I haven’t got any pictures for you of our lunch but let’s say we were thoroughly impressed with the simplicity but complexity of flavours in every salad choice and every main course choice.

You’ve got to go check it out for yourself and then you’ll understand the magic of Ottolenghi.

Our lunch went too quickly for our happy stomachs but oh, within seconds after sitting down you could tell us Tea Ladies were completely hooked. If Ottolenghi wasn’t going to reel us in, we’d go to it. Got us completely dancing to their mesmerising tune. Mowie was an Ottolenghi virgin but oh no more. And to discover the joys of dessert take-away! Faced with such an array of beauties, it’s always a real problem trying to choose what to get and when to stop. I managed to stop at two, but only because I was quite satiated from a Bailey’s Chocolate Cake post-lunch. Didn’t manage to get a picture of that either but it was a beaute! A super beaute in fact, coming in close second to my all-time love Lemon, Pistachio & Polenta cake. On my next trip, I will make sure I get a picture of it for you lot! A must-try.

It was a sweet Sunday and other than the little bits of sugar gold I had in a bleached white paperbag, I had a couple of pictures of my beautiful Tea Ladies furiously snapping their cameras away outside Ottolenghi. Absolutely love it! There’s no other human species quite like us foodbloggers. We’re a curious kind. Food voyeurs. Our regressive animalistic behaviour is incurable. And if we had the option of being permanently attached to our cameras (tourist-y camera strap or no), I’m sure we would. Our friends think we’re incorrigible and our inherent need to photograph food or talk about it 24/7 sometimes frustrating. But seriously, I bet they envy us. Look at us, anywhere we are, people stop and stare. Yea. Wanna know what they’re thinking? Probably something like, ‘Oh yea, check em out them cool kids. They’ve so got it.’ And don’t forget that some of us have some monstrous bling-bling big-bang type cameras. Now that’s gotta be totally sexy, no?

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White Chocolate and Cranberry Cheesecake Tart – I love tarts and part of that is to because I love the tart crust best. If the filling doesn’t interest me enough, I eat the crust on its own. If the fillings too delicious to ignore, I save the crust for last. Ottolenghi, as usual, gets it right with their desserts. The crust was delicious and not overly sweet. It was sensationally buttery. Right amount of crust, right amount of filling and I ate them both at the same time (of course I saved a little chunk of crust to savour at the very last moment). The white chocolate cheesecake in the middle was stupendously good. Unlike most cheesecakes, it didn’t leave me feeling a little too queasy, only just a little because I breathed the thing down my throat in about 10 seconds. That gives me reason to feel a little woozy. But it was  generally very light and the cranberry coulis on top was fab, cutting through the cheese and making me feel a little bit of Christmas (even though that’s just gone and done now sadly). A thumbs up to the crushed pistachio and dusting of icing sugar – definitely very Christmassy for those slightly post-holiday depressed. A great pick-me-up. Small, compared to other Ottolenghi treats, but power-packed.

Raspberry & Strawberry Financier - I thought this was very similar to the Lemon Blueberry & Almond Cake I tried some time ago. The texture is very similar and the taste of lemon really stands out. But of course, raspberry goes really well with lemon so I couldn’t fault how delicious this pairing was. Absolutely loved how the raspberries and lemon wasn’t too tart – the sugar glaze on top of the financier was beautiful to look at and definitely helped balance out the flavour. The dollop of whipped double cream on the top was quite perfect as well. Part of me wondered if they could’ve infused the cream with vanilla seeds but I finally decided it didn’t need that extra bit. It was simple and gorgeous at it was. A smooth, dense and flavoursome cake. Ottolenghi sure knows what they’re good at and they’re especially great with their lemony treats. This isn’t excluded, not at all.

Now all we’ve got left is to send Mowie on a mission to steal the recipes.

Jokes.

I am joking. Don’t panic, alright.