Skip to main content

Of cheesecakes, fruits and chocolate



Some flavors go together so well that chefs should be fined for not pairing them more often. Take mango and chocolate; the reason you see one solitary cheesecake up there instead of six. But I digress. This story starts with daring bakers and cheesecakes. Towards the end of every month, there is an explosion of a single recipe in the blogsphere. Thousands of daring bakers make scary things like lasagne or flourless cakes. But in April, they made cheesecake.

I am not a daring baker, and don't have enough sense of adventure to be one. But cheesecake has been on my to-make wishlist for a long time. The daring bakers recipes usually make huge quantities, but Olga cut down the recipe and made her cheesecake in muffin tins. I scaled down the recipe to 1/3rd, brought out my 6 brioche cups and made plain cheesecake cupcakes.

Olga said her cheesecake sank and cracked so I didn't even start thinking of toppings. But my cheesecakes didn't rise, didn't sink, didn't crack and were perfect once chilled. Which is when I made ganache (1/4 cup each of cream and chocolate chips heated in the microwave until melted) and chopped some mango.

I decorated a cheesecake. Then I dipped a mango slice in ganache. It was flavorful. No, it was completely mindblowing. Much better than my earlier favorite of strawberries dipped in chocolate. Which is why the ganache and mango are eaten and the other five cheesecakes are still plain. Topping ideas, anyone?

This cheesecake is my third entry for Srivalli's Mithai Mela.
Labels:

Comments

lubnakarim06 said…
I feel like licking it right now................Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
May 2, 2009 at 4:01 PM
chef and her kitchen said…
Nice attempt simran...yummy cake....you can even top with smashed jam like blueberry or cherry jam(i saw somewhere in a show)
May 2, 2009 at 5:48 PM
Laura said…
That's beautiful--I am so impressed by people with the energy to deal with multiple smaller cheesecakes! I am not the biggest fruit person so I would go either citrus, like a lime curd, or chocolate or caramel. Oh wait, that last is what I did. :)
May 3, 2009 at 4:11 AM
CurryLeaf said…
Love it.I too had bookmarked these from a site.Love the toppings.Is this the start of a daring baker.Cheers.Individual cheesecake is a must try.
May 3, 2009 at 7:18 AM
Alka said…
Looks so cute dear...I personally don't like any cream icing on cakes,they tend to be too sweet for my taste,but this topping surely looks refreshingly different
May 3, 2009 at 5:46 PM
Parita said…
Individual cheesecake sounds too good..the pic looks grt
May 3, 2009 at 5:55 PM
rachel said…
am glad you made it.
May 3, 2009 at 6:29 PM
notyet100 said…
this looks so yum,..
May 3, 2009 at 7:42 PM
Olga said…
Hi!
I'm so glad you had better luck with your cheesecakes.

Don't be afraid to join daring bakers :) We would help and encourage you!!
May 4, 2009 at 2:52 AM
Sunshinemom said…
Superb! I love all that chocolate on top:) Came to say hi after a long gap:)
May 4, 2009 at 5:33 PM
proud2bindian.in said…
Thax for sharing. I really liked your blog!
May 4, 2009 at 8:57 PM
Pooh said…
you'll think me strange but some toppings i've liked are blackberry preservers (no sugar added) with a glaze of hardened caramel on top. :)
May 5, 2009 at 4:58 AM
Aparna Balasubramanian said…
Looks very good. Who says you aren't good enough to be a DB? You just did a challenge. ;)
May 7, 2009 at 4:34 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I've found my perfect cookie

It's a bite sized cookie, with flavors of a pie, shape of a croissant and a pretty, pretty name. It's Rugelach. I first heard of this cookie when it became the baking pick for Tuesdays with Dorrie a couple of months back. The looks, the concept - everything was fascinating. And I've dreamed of making this cookie ever since. I ditched hundreds of recipes floating around and went straight to the master. It's Dorie Greenspan's recipe that I used, and ain't I glad I got it so perfect the very first time. So what's rugelach? It's cream-cheese pastry dough, rolled then cut into wedges, spread with jam and sugar and fillings of choice, rolled into crescents and baked. First the dough. Dorie did it in her processor, but I just went and did it by hand. Put 100 gms cream cheese and 100 gms butter out of the fridge until they were soft but still cold. Added both to a cup of plain flour (I omitted the salt because I use salted butter). Rubbed the flour and but...
10 comments
Read more

Mystery Fruit

This only happened a few times every year, just when the rainy season kicked in. A street hawker will come by, straw basket on head. He will yell "kaul chapni" and I will run out to buy a bundle of these. Stuck together like flowers, they looked like a bouquet. Every hole contains a little fruit. You break out the package, peel the tiny fruit that pops out and eat it. Done slowly, it can take you an hour to eat an head. Or did, when I was about 12 years old. That was the last time I saw this fruit. I've never seen it again, didn't even know what it was called or where it came from. Three weeks back, Vikram Doctor wrote about a store in Khar that sells Sindhi foods. He described this fruit and I knew it came from my vivid childhood memories. And finally, I knew we were talking about lotus fruit. Now talk about coincidences. Last weekend, I was passing by a lane in Bandra and for the first time in many, many years I saw the straw basket filled with my mytery fru...
14 comments
Read more

Of Brun and Bun Maska

There is more to Bombay's breads than the pao that goes into pao bhaji and vada pao. There's Brun. and there's bun. We will get there. First, you have to get to know the city's Parsis. And Iranis, who are also Zoroastrians, but came to city a little later, in the late 19th or early 20th century. And when they came, they brought with them these little cafes that dot the city. I am no expert on Irani chai cafes. And I can't tell you whether Yazdani Bakery will provide you the best experience or Kyani's. But I can tell you a few things you need to ignore when you get there. Appearances don't matter; so ignore the fact that the marble/glass top tables and the wooden chairs look a bit dilapidated. Also ignore the rundown look the place sports. Instead, get yourself settled. And order a bun muska. This one's familiar to you as a first cousin of the soft hamburger bun. It's similar, but just a tad bit sweeter. Maska, of course, is the generous dollop o...
13 comments
Read more