& A Partridge In A Pear Tree

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas (:

This year's celebration was no different from the rest, as mum & I headed to uncle Kenneth's for Christmas dinner as we always do (: This time, however, I decided to do something special instead of just getting him a bottle of wine. For the past couplve days I've had the urge to bake (studying tends to do that to me sometimes) so I went through some of the recipes I've bookmarked online til I found the one that felt the most appropriate for the holiday season. I eventually settled on a cranberry cheesecake recipe by Julia (aka MissChievous), a YouTube make-up guru whose videos I absolutely adore. You can find the recipe, as well as a video of her baking the cake, here. I'd replicated one of her recipes before (a peppermint chocolate cookie one that I made for New Year's) which turned out great, so I was quite confident to give this one a go too.

Since the recipe required the cake to rest in the fridge overnight, I started baking Saturday afternoon after making the foolish decision of braving the Christmas Eve rush at Cold Storage in the morning. I would've gladly just gone to the nearby supermarket to save me the travel time, but I knew they wouldn't have cranberries, so off I went to Great Eastern in my quest for ingredients. Thankfully the crowd wasn't that bad, and I managed to grab everything I needed in fifteen minutes or so, much to my relief. I started off with the cookie base, which was a simple mix of crushed Tiger milk biscuits, grated dark chocolate & melted butter, which I then used to line the cake tin before popping it into the oven for a few minutes to set it.


Mixing the cookie base.

While the base was in the oven, I started on the cheesecake filling, which was pretty basic, except for the addition of orange zest. Julia had added some brandy in her batter as well, but as a substitute, I poured in a dash of Tropicana orange Twister along with the zest. It was actually supposed to be an orange concentrate, but I made do with whatever I could find on the spur of the moment.


Making the filling & stealing a lick or two of the batter (;

Left that in the oven for about an hour (which I later found out to be a little longer than necessary since my cake cracked in middle) & once it was done, I switched off the oven and left the cake inside with the door slightly ajar to let it cool slowly. While I was waiting for that to set, I started on my cranberry topping by first making a simple syrup of water, sugar and corn starch, then pouring in two packets of clean cranberries (which were a hefty RM20 each, damn!). In Julia's video, she took it off the heat immediately when the cranberries popped, but I left mine on til the berries got a little... mushy, for the lack of a better word. I preferred the topping to look more like a thick jam rather than the fruits still intact.





Once both the cake & topping had cooled enough, I cling wrapped them and put them both in the fridge to set overnight. I took it out right as we were leaving for the dinner as I wanted it to still be firm once I got there. It was nerve wracking opening up the spring form - my worst nightmare would have been for the cake to just completely crumble once I transferred it into the cake box. But, lo and behold, it came out nicely - albiet the crack, which I was able to cover up with the cranberry topping anyway - and it also tasted pretty good if I do say so myself ;P


Straight from the fridge.






The finished product (:

Carrying it to uncle Kenneth's, I was actually quite nervous to find out if it was any good. Sure it may taste alright to me, but that's a biased judgement, of course. I was glad that people did like it, so much so that it was literally gone in half an hour, and I had to quickly grab a slice for my mum before it completely disappeared. For that I have a give myself a mental pat on the back. Not bad for a first-shot at baking a cheesecake.


What I found after fifteen minutes, to my pleasant surprise (:

Who would've thought I'd actually blog about cooking? Haha! I guess I'm just so excited about my masterpiece I just couldn't wait to blog about it :P I'm actually looking forward to baking again, but that will have to wait until my exams are over - the number of cups of flour and sugar that goes into the batter should be the last thing on my mind right now. We'll see, though. I might just make baking another hobby of mine (;

The rest of the night was fantastic as usual. Uncle Kenneth's over-the-top Christmas decor always puts me in a great mood whenever we visit, not to mention the vast array of food & carols that were played through the night. Halfway through, out came the karaoke set and those of us who were bold enough took over and sang their hearts out. Out of all of them my favourite would have to be an eight-year-old girl's rendition of the Abba classic, Mamma Mia. It was just too cute! I just wish I had recorded it. We left a little after that and when we got home, mum and I were greeted by fireworks from one of the hotels in the area, another welcome surprise of the night.

All in all, it was an excellent Christmas, & here's to what I hope would be an equally terrific New Year's.