Raspberry Cheesecake Perfection

This is one of a few blogs about my time working on an island with a group of people as enthusiastic about food as I am.  It was also a time when the workload for the day job was about to significantly increase, so we were all in procrastination mode.  This meant that we were all extra happy to spend a lot of time in the kitchens, preparing food, enjoying what other people had made, plus generally chilling and having some good chats.  There was also an element of raising the stakes, thus "the kettle's on, come over for tea and scones" became "the kettle's on and I've made cheesecake" then naturally progressed to several full-on dinner parties.  Good times.

Returning the focus to the cheesecake, this was made by The Panorama, and I will post the recipe as soon as I have it because the foodlove deserves to be shared.  The picture doesn't really do it justice.  It is a baked cheescake with a biscuit crust.   

I was on my way to the shops to buy ingredients for supper when The Panorama leant out of his kitchen window and asked me if I wanted tea and cheesecake. 2 hours and 3 slices of cheesecake later, it was apparent that I wasn't going to need any supper.  Normally I can only manage one slice of cheesecake but in this case I was aware that a cheesecake this good may never come my way again.  I'm salivating at the memory.  This cheesecake meets the criteria for a perfect 10/10.

Common pitfalls for cheesecakes are: cloyingly sickly, not sweet enough, too rich, too bland, too much vanilla essence and too dry.  The Panorama had deftly navigated his way amongst these and avoided them all.  The filling was rich and sweet with enough sharpness from the cheese to keep it balanced.  It was moist and there was enough grainy texture to stop it from being gooey.  The rapsberries complemented the creaminess well, by adding a slight bitterness from the seeds as well as fruity acidity.  It was definitely a chesecake with raspberries in, rather than becoming fully raspberry flavoured, and it was all the better for it.  The next challenege will be getting the recipe and seeing if I can replicate The Panorama's result.

Teatime

Culturally and genetically I am conditioned to believe that there are very few situations that can't be improved by a cuppa. 

When it comes to black tea I often like it strong with a little milk.  This is something that can be achieved in a mug with PG tips.  For a bit more attention to detail, a single variety teabag can be used, or even tea leaves.  I had tried this once with Assam leaves and found that the tea which resulted had a fuller taste than tea made with an Assam teabag of the same brand (Twinings, for anyone who wants to try this.)  I didn't do a blind tasting, however, so it could just be that I wanted the leaf tea to taste better.

I had forgotten the ways of leaf tea until I spent the past month living on an island with The Teaboy and The Panorama, who are very serious about tea. They use loose leaf tea, and had several varieties of leaves with which they make different blends.

Their English Breakfast blend was 2 parts Assam: 1 part Kenyan: 1 part Ceylon.  It ticked the box of being strong, but managed to retain flavours from the individual components.  The 'best cup' was particularly good.

My 'best cup' of tea is when a teapot is being used, you have drunk half your cup of tea, and then top up your cup from the teapot.  You might think the same effect can be achieved by starting off with less milk in the first cup of tea but for some reason it doesn't seem to work like that.

Also of note from the afternoon teas with The Teaboy and Panorama were the generous provision of biscuits.  Hobnobs with their English Breakfast blend was especially tasty.  I also managed to consume an indecent amount (Teaboy, I apologise) of Lotus caramelised biscuits.  This was partly because I was trying to see if they go as well with tea as they do with coffee- they don't- but also because they are so tasty!

Teaboy's Scones

Another day, another cup of tea at The Teaboy's.

This time the biscuits were usurped by The Teaboy's homemade scones.  He usually uses bicarbonate of soda in his scones, but had not brought any to the island.  What he did have was an egg.  So a trial was made of egg scones.

This experiment had a very happy ending. The scones rose well and were consumed the second they came out of the oven by The Fiesta, The Teaboy, The Panorama, and myself  The egg added a richness and lightness to the scones.

Dream Team Combinations

Just a very quick post about two amazing food combinations I've stumbled across in the last 24hrs:

1. Goats Cheese + Mango Cutney. 

Cheddar cheese and mango chutney is a well-acknowledged good pairing (which I can say with extra certainty after a mindnight snack of these guys with The Fiesta on sunday) so I decided to branch out.  I took mild goats cheese- creamy. slightly sour, slightly salty, chilled from the fridge, and put it on granary toast with the warmly spiced Geeta's Mango Chutney.  I recommend it.

2. Mushy Peas + Chili Flakes

Last night The Panorama hosted a home-made fish and chip party- which will be a post in itself- but equally as impressive as the fish and chips were the mushy peas.  The Panorama had been concerned that the mushy peas weren't spicy enough, so he added some dried chili flakes.  This worked very well, both alone, with the sweetness of the peas and the heat of the pepper, but also with the battered fish as the chili cut through some of the mouth-coating richness from the oil without overwhelming the delicate flavour of the fish.

The Teaboy was as enthusiastic as me about the chili peas, and we fought over eating the last scraps from the saucepan!