Happy New Year!

Just a short note to say that I am unable to update my blog frequently these days, as I'm busy baking Christmas cookies (above), enjoying saunas and hugging snowy trees in Viru bog on the Northern coast of Estonia (below). I'll be back in the new year to tell you all about the copious Christmas eating and cooking, and will try to answer all those memes I have been tagged for during the last month or so.

Thanks to all of you who have made keeping this blog so enjoyable during the last 6 months. I hope you will continue to come back next year!



Head vana-aasta lõppu ja toredat uut aastat!!!

Lingonberry cheesecake

Lingonberries 

I had planned to make another cranberry cake for the Christmas dinner, but on the day I did the shopping, I had a choice between imported American cranberries or local Estonian lingonberries. As both berries are tart and sour, I opted for the berries that hadn't been on a long-haul flight, and I also picked up a jar of fresh lingonberry jam (IKEA sells a nice one). I used curd cheese - kohupiim - that is very common in Estonia, but feel free to use cream cheese - the texture is slightly different, but both should work.

Lingonberry cheesecake
(Pohla-kohupiimatort)



Base:
350 grams plain chocolate biscuits
150 grams butter, melted

Cheesecake mixture:
400-500 grams plain curd cheese or cream cheese
400 ml whipping cream
400 grams sweetened lingonberry jam
50 ml sugar
12 gelatine sheets

To decorate:
lingonberries

Crush the biscuits and mix with melted butter. Press the mixture into a baking sheet (I used 22x32 cm, cover with a large piece of baking paper) and put into a fridge.
Whisk whipping cream with some sugar until soft peaks form.
In another bowl, mix the cream or curd cheese with lingonberry jam.
Mix whipped cream and creamed cheese.
Is using gelatine sheets, soak in cold water for 5 minutes, then squeeze dry, mix with 50 ml boiling water and mix, until gelatine has dissolved.
Add to the cream cheese mixture, mixing vigorously, so you wouldn't end up with any lumps. Throw in few generous handfuls of berries, if you wish.
Pour the cheese mixture onto the crushed biscuit base and put the cake in a fridge for at least 4-5 hours or until the following day (or two).
Before serving, lift the cake out with the help of the baking paper. Decorate with lingonberries and cut into small squares.

Baking for Christmas: a cranberry upside down cake

Nigella’s How to be a Domestic Goddess is probably one of my most cherished cookbooks – though having acquired a number of delicious books recently, it has quite a few competitors. I’ve already written about the delicious yet simple Chocolate & Orange Cake and delicate Pistachio Macaro(o)ns, and I’ve tried her recipes for Norwegian Cinnamon Buns, Nigellan Flatbread, Snickerdoodles – some once, some more often. A South African friend of mine swears by Granny Boyd’s Biscuits, also in the book. Another favourite of mine in that book is the Cranberry Upside Down Cake.

I tried the cake some 2 years ago. Although I remember it tasted lovely, it was slightly sad looking affair. I had used one of those cheap square cake tins, which obviously did not distribute the heat evenly and burnt half of my cranberries. Judge yourself:

Determined to give it another go, I bought a Silverwood tarte tatin dish in early December. I still had some cranberries left since I made a cranberry orange loaf few weeks ago, and the rest of the ingredients are typical store cupboard stuff anyway.

Cranberry Upside Down Cake
(Jõhvika pahupidikook)

Cranberry layer:
4 Tbsp butter
150 ml sugar
200 ml cranberries

Batter:
200 ml self-rising flour
pinch of salt
1 tsp cinnamon
125 ml sugar
125 ml butter, cubed
2 large eggs
50-100 ml milk

You start by melting the butter on the hob. Add the sugar and stir, until sugar has dissolved. Now stir in cranberries and mix, until cranberries are covered with a lovely glossy sugar and butter mixture.



Now mix the batter ingredients and pour over the cranberries. Nigella uses a food processor - then you need much less milk. I rely on muscle power, so I mixed the dry ingredients, chopped in the butter and then added the eggs and milk.

Bake in the middle of 180˚C oven for about 30 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and well risen. Can you see the pink hue of cranberries at the edge of the cake?

Cover the tray with a serving plate and flip the tatin dish around – carefully, so you wouldn’t burn yourself!


Serve. Isn't it pretty and oh so Christmassy in colour!?



UPDATE: Gracianne of the French-language Un dimanche a la Campagne baked this cake in March 2006.