Helen RandellBaked cheesecake fail
September 15th 2011 10:58
On Father’s Day this year I suffered a baked cheesecake fail.
It began simply enough, when I pulled myself out of bed to make the biscuit base, which then had to sit in the fridge for an hour before the next step could be done. The recipe was featured on the front cover of the Aug/Sept edition of Donna Hay magazine (you can find it here), so read I it through and put my required quantity plain sweet biscuits, and my almond meal into the mixer, along with a little melted butter and processed the whole lot til it looked like breadcrumbs. Then, I lined my 24cm spring form pan and tipped the crumb into the pan to press it against the sides to make the base.
Fail number 1: On tipping the crumb into the pan it practically filled the whole thing… as in, not just around the edges, but actually took up the whole volume of the tin. So, I decanted about half of the mixture, grabbed some smaller pie tins and made additional, individual bases – pressing the crumb against the side of the tins. These then went into the fridge for an hour.
The mixing of the filling was fairly non-eventful, with a wonderful look and texture developing as the cream cheese was whipped into submission. The bases came out of the oven, and the filling went into them (I did have enough filling to go between my extra tins as well). The next step was to create a bain marie by putting the springform tin into a second baking dish, and part filling it with water until the liquid came half way up the side.
Fail number 2: Even as I was about to do this step, I was questioning whether my springform pan, lined with baking paper, was up for this waterproofing challenge (really, I knew that it wasn’t, but I felt committed by this stage). It didn’t look too bad sitting on the bench, but as soon as I moved it to place it in the oven, the telltale ‘bloop, bloop’ water sounds could be heard, and I knew the water was seeping into my biscuit base.
I bain marie-ed my other smaller pie (fixed base) dishes as well and baked for the required time. Bringing the cheesecakes out of the oven, I left them to cool in their tins for just a little while, and then pulled released the springform.
Fail number 3: My main cheesecake, the one I was taking to Father’s Day dinner, was pretty soggy on the bottom, but the crumbs around the top, which had not been soaked through, were very dry and crumbly – so most of them fell off when I released the pan. I removed the soggy biscuit base from the bottom of the cake, and ‘plated’ in up in a pie dish instead, with a few spoonfuls of biscuit base pushed around the edge. I made the cream for the top of the cake, spreading it thickly to hide where I had sliced the cake to get it off the soggy base. I also made the caramel sauce to serve – which in actual fact was delicious. My mini cheesecakes worked out a treat, no soggy bottoms, although, the biscuit was still too crumbly for my liking.
Despite three fails, culminating in a very large Cheesecake Fail, this dessert was actually pretty tasty – and it didn’t look too bad covered in cream and platted up with caramel sauce. All the elements combined to make a delicious ending to a lovely Father’s Day dinner, however, I think I’ll need to alter the recipe before I give this one another go!
I have notified Donna Hay (via their feedback form) of these problems, but have not heard anything back. I’ll keep you posted on their response.
Anyone else had a food fail lately? Come on, we're all friends here
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Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
My biggest fail was a squid ink pasta. I was cooking a dinner party and found this recipe with a black squid ink pasta. I was so determined to make it as I loved the idea of a black pasta that I ended up calling half of Sydney to find the squid ink - found a seafood place at Bondi that inked squid for me.
Cooked this pasta and it was the most disgusting flavour I have ever imagined - I ended up ordering 6 pizzas for everyone after clearing the table
Comment by Helen Randell
Rough Cooking
Love a good fail!