Berry Brew!

In the last couple of years of brewing I've done one batch which has involved pressing the fruit myself, which was also my first batch. It was really satisfying but due to the 2012 crop being quite poor on the whole I didn't get to do it. I also borrowed the press from some friends which was really useful, however this year they too had a good crop to work with so I couldn't get it as they were (understandably) using it.

So, after a lot of looking around and pondering, i bought my own. Of the three sizes, i bought the largest, most because the price difference and capacity were less than linear. the smallest of this design were 2/3 the price and 1/4 of the capacity, the next size up, barely £10 less and half the size. Didn't really seem like a sensible choice to get anything less than the largest.

Another investment was a pack of plain cotton pillow cases, cheap and they'll help keep much of the pulp from entering the juice. 

First up, the blackberries which the pillowcase prove invaluable for as there are SO many seeds and bits.

First press, starting gently.

The press made a pretty good cake of berry pulp, but it still felt fairly moist.

A quick blast in a pan broke them down a little and they gave up quite a bit more. In the end I got nearly half a gallon of juice from them alone.

Sure enough after another press, the result was much drier.

The abundance of juice meant almost 1/8th of the batch was blackberries and the rest apple, more than i'd expected, but in retrospect 1/4 or even 1/3 would have given a slightly better colour.

Baked Alaskan Rasberry and Chocolate Chunk Brownies with Chambord

Whilst making this cheesecake for Norway Day we had to go to Tesco to get some supplies (namely food colouring). While wandering about the home baking section I had an idea to use up some remaining raspberries which has been frozen. While i didnt plan on making it tonight, when we got back form Tesco I had a couple drinks and half midnight seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea while I waited for the cheesecake to bake.

So heres the mix,m again, its premade, but i'm going to make it better.

The remaining pot of raspberries, delicious and defrosted.

The dry mix didnt look to have many chunks, so I improvised and found some Dairy Milk minatures in the chocolate tin. You used to be able to get a dispensing machine for kids to play with for these. Mine took 2p coins and dropped out a bar for each one. You could load half a box at a time and it made it last a bit longer, until you worked out how to unload all the coins again and just run them through or take the back off. But thats no fun.

Half a pack of those chopped into thirds made a nice pile of decent sized chunks.

Again, the mix needed and egg, some oil, and some water. Instead of water I added what was left of the chambord (just over a shot) and the raspberry mess

The mix was a bit thin due to the extra liquid from the fruit, so a few teaspoons of flour were added to bulk it out. Forgetting to use the sieve was probably an error...

... But part 1 of the instructions saved the day

The cheesecake had to be cooked in a hot water bath, and the only tin I had was an oversize cake tin. This turned out to be cakemix tight, but not water tight, so the pan I intended on using for the brownies was acting as a drip tray to stop the bottom of the oven being covered in water. As it happened the leaks were far from bad and what little escaped evaporated pretty fast.

Because of this, while I was waiting to get the pan back I had more free time, and what seemed like a good idea was to use the two egg whites left over from the cheese cake and try and make a meringue. Having never done so, and it being 1AM, i elected not to use the mixer and just put in some elbow grease.

First it got whisked to a foam and then gradually added caster sugar so as not to make it collapse. After about half an hour, heres the results. Firm enough to stand the whisk in and forming soft, but fluffy peaks. First attempt and making a meringue, first success.

In the mean time of finishing the whisking to end all whisking the cheesecake stopped leaking enough to retrieve the pan and line it with baking paper. The mix went in and hid under the other try catching the drips so it didnt get wet and would crisp nicely. After 20 minutes the brownie tray came out and I decided to put a layer of the meringue on the top as they were a bit thin at the edge.

There was just enough form the two egg whites to cover it.

Finally it went back in the oven to turn the outside a golden brown.

The Great Norwegian Cheesecake-capade

Today (May 17th) is Norwegian Constitution Day and as Sue is Norwegian, we must celebrate! In this case, she has decided we're to make a tri-colour cheese cake for the occasion and for the BBQ this afternoon. So last night became something of an escapade while making it and spawned a number of other things too.

Most cheesecakes have a crushed biscuit base, but this seemed a little tame for our adventurous step into the world of crazy cheesecakes. After a few different ideas, we settled on COOKIE DOUGH!

Being a bit rushed, we decided to use a dough mix, and make it better. The mix called for an egg, some oil and some water. Instead of water, we used a water substitute for extra flavour. After mixing, it looked a little dry, better add more...

RUM! Far better than water.

The mix came together much better and filled the tin about 1/4" deep.

The cheesecake mix was a pretty standard affair from the BBC site, with 900g of cream cheese, 3 eggs (plus 2 yolks), some creme fraiche and vanilla extract.

Mmm, gloopy.

To make the tri-colouring effect the mix was split into three bowls, and then food colouring added. At least it would have been, if I'd had any in the house. On closer inspection of the baking cupboard, the food colouring had disappeared, so we used whatever we had, That turned out to be alcohol!

The red was made with Chambord and when that wasn't enough (just a pale pink) some blended frozen raspberries from the freezer. The white was pretty simple, but so as not to spoil a good idea, Absolut Citron went in along with some lemon peel. The blue was... troublesome. While I had a lot of blue curacao in the bar and it did start making it a pale blue, the more that was added, the greener it got.

At this point, the red is looking ok after roughly half the chambord and frozen raspberries, plus some potato flour to rethicken the mixture. The white is looking as white as ever, really a sort of pale cream colour, and the blue is still pretty green and thin. More potato flour fixed the consistency, but obviously not the colour.

After an 11pm trip to Tesco Newbury we came back with blue food colouring, among other things (more on that later), and the poring could begin.

The first two colours worked perfectly, nice concentric circles, but once again, the blue wasnt done with trying to screw me. It was still a bit too thin and going into the fairly thick white layer it spilled over the top a little and didnt stay confined where it was poured. In retrospect it should have gone in before the white, or been thickened more.

But on the plus side, it did bake pretty well. 10 minutes at 180C, 40 minutes at 140C and then 10 more about 160-180 to set the top a little more.

Hopefully by the time you're reading this, i'll have cut it and can see the results of the pour in cross section. If it worked, hurrah! if it didnt, at least i've got a reasonably boozy cheesecake.