Nigel Slater’s chocolate peanut butter cheesecake
This is a very softly set, gooey cheesecake, so don’t expect to get neat slices from it. It is possibly the richest thing you could ever eat, so serve it in small amounts. It is essential to keep this in the fridge overnight, so start the day before.
Serves 8
For the base
butter 75g
dark chocolate digestives 175g
salted roasted peanuts 100g
For the filling
chocolate 100g
full-fat cream cheese 450g
eggs 4
an extra yolk
caster sugar 120g
vanilla extract 1 tsp
crunchy peanut butter 100g
Melt the butter in a small pan. Blitz the digestive biscuits in a food processor or bash them in a plastic bag with a rolling pin to large crumbs. Tip the crumbs into the melted butter. Process the peanuts to a coarse powder in the food processor then stir into the mixture.
Tip the mixture into a 20cm springform cake tin and smooth flat, but without compacting the crumbs. Place in the fridge to set.
Set the oven at 160C/gas mark 3. Break the chocolate into small pieces, then melt in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Do not stir but push any unmelted chocolate down into the liquid chocolate with a spoon. The less you stir, the less likely it is to “seize”. Put the cream cheese, eggs, egg yolk, caster sugar and vanilla in the bowl of a food mixer and beat slowly till thoroughly mixed.
Wrap the base of the cake tin in two layers of kitchen foil so no water gets in as it cooks. Pour the cream cheese filling on to the biscuit base. Pour the melted chocolate on next, then spoonfuls of peanut butter at regular intervals. Using a skewer or the handle of a spoon, swirl the chocolate and peanut butter throughout the cream cheese mixture.
Put the cake tin in a roasting tin and pour in hot water to half way up the sides of the tin. Bake in the oven for 55-60 minutes. The cake should still wobble in the centre. Leave in a little longer if necessary, covering with foil to stop the top colouring.
Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool in the tin of water. Transfer to the fridge and leave overnight or for at least 7 hours.
Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers’s espresso and hazelnut
Makes 12 slices
unsalted butter 300g, plus extra for greasing
shelled hazelnuts 480g
instant coffee 4 tbsp
chocolate 180g, 70% cocoa solids
organic eggs 6
caster sugar 220g
Preheat the oven to 160C/gas mark 3.Using extra butter, grease a 25cm cake tin, and line with parchment paper.
Roast the hazelnuts in the oven until brown. Let cool, rub off the skins and grind them to a fine powder.
Dissolve the instant coffee in 1 tbsp of hot water.
Break the chocolate pieces and melt with the butter and coffee in a bowl over simmering water. Cool, then fold into the hazelnuts.
Separate the eggs and beat the yolks and sugar in a mixer until pale and doubled in size. Fold in the chocolate.
Beat the egg whites until stiff, and then carefully fold into the mixture. Pour into the tin.
Bake in the oven for 40 minutes. Cool in the tin.
From River Cafe Cookbook Easy by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers (Ebury Press, £20). Click here to order a copy from Guardian Bookshop for £16.40
Kitty Travers’s raspberry and peach nougat ice-cream cake with buttermilk sponge
The ice cream and sorbet bases and sponge can all be made a day in advance – just keep them wrapped and refrigerated. Churn the ice cream and sorbet on the same day as assembling the cake so they are soft enough to mould. The finished cake will then need around 4 hours in the freezer to harden before serving. If you don’t have an ice-cream machine, freeze each mixture in a really big bowl then every 45 minutes remove from the freezer and whisk vigorously. Do this three or four times, until smooth, then proceed with freezing each layer in the loaf tin. Keep any remaining sorbet or ice cream in the freezer in a small container with a tight-fitting lid.
Serves 8-10
For the peach nougat ice cream (makes 1 litre)
peaches 4, ripe
golden granulated sugar 200g
unwaxed lemon 1, zest and juice
whole milk 250ml
double cream 250ml
egg yolks 4 large
almond nougat 150g
For the raspberry sorbet (makes 1 litre)
raspberries 450g, fresh or frozen
sugar 190g
water 200ml
lemon juice of 1
For the buttermilk sponge
self-raising flour 85g
salt a pinch
butter 40g, softened
caster sugar 70g
egg 1 large
buttermilk 70g
For the peach nougat ice cream, halve the peaches, collecting any juice, and remove the stones. Roughly slice them into a bowl. Add any juice plus 50g of the sugar and the zest and juice of the lemon. Toss gently to coat the peaches in juice and sugar, then cover the bowl with cling film and chill.
Bring the milk and cream to a simmer in a heavy based pan and stir occasionally to avoid scorching. As the liquid heats, whisk the remaining 150g sugar into the egg yolks to combine. Slowly pour the hot milk into the yolk-sugar mixture to “temper” the yolks, then return to the pan and cook out to 82C, stirring constantly.
As soon as the mixture reaches 82C, place the pan in a sink full of iced water. Stir occasionally until the custard reaches room temperature. Pour into a bowl, cover then chill overnight.
Place the nougat in the freezer.
To make the sorbet, place the raspberries, sugar and water in a heatproof bowl. If you have a microwave, simply blast them for a minute or two until the fruit is very lightly cooked. Otherwise, set the bowl over a pan of barely simmering water (a bain-marie) and cook lightly until the raspberries burst, about 5 minutes.
Once cooked, leave to cool then add the lemon juice and blitz with a stick blender until smooth. Push the pulp through a fine-mesh sieve to remove the pips, getting as much fruit through as possible. Cover and chill.
To make the sponge, preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Butter a 1kg loaf tin or a loaf-shaped silicone mould.
Sieve or whisk the flour and salt to remove lumps and aerate.
Cream the butter and sugar together. Whisk the egg in a small bowl then pour it into the creamed butter little by little, adding a tablespoon of flour with the last bit of egg to stop the mixture curdling. Gradually fold in the rest of the flour and lastly the buttermilk.
Pour into the tin or mould and bake for 20-25 minutes until pale golden and a strand of spaghetti or toothpick can be inserted into the cake and come out clean.
Leave to cool for 5 minutes then turn out on to a wire rack to continue cooling. Once cold, wrap in clingfilm and chill.
To assemble the cake, lightly oil a clean loaf tin and line it with 2 layers of cling film, pressing down into the corners of the tin with your fingertips to make sure there aren’t any air pockets (this isn’t necessary if you are using a silicone mould) and leaving an overhang of around 5cm.
Slice the cake lengthways to obtain an even slice of approximately 1cm thickness. Line the bottom of the loaf tin with this slice then place the tin in the freezer. (You can add another layer of sponge between the ice cream and sorbet if you want, or use the leftover cake for a trifle.)
Whisk the chilled raspberry sorbet mix well, in case it has separated, then pour it into an ice-cream machine and churn according to the machine’s instructions until it looks “dry”, not melty (usually about 20 minutes).
Remove the loaf tin from the freezer and smooth about a third of the sorbet all over the cake to make an approximate 2½cm layer. Take care to avoid leaving air bubbles and make sure the sorbet gets into all the corners before smoothing the top. Return this to the freezer.
Scrape the macerated peaches and sugar into the custard and blitz them together until absolutely lump free, before passing through a sieve.
Pour this peach custard into an ice-cream machine and churn according to instructions, or until the texture of the ice cream resembles whipped cream.
While the ice cream is churning remove the nougat from the freezer and roughly chop. Sprinkle the chunks of nougat into the peach ice cream before filling up the rest of the tin with this mixture, and smoothing the top. Fold the overhanging cling film around the ice cream to wrap it up.
Place the loaf tin in the freezer for ideally 4 hours before serving, so that it’s firm enough to slice. If kept frozen for longer than this, remove from freezer for 10 minutes before serving.
To serve, place the underside of the tin in a sink or bowl of lukewarm water for a second or two, then up-end on a serving plate. Remove the tin and then peel away the cling film and serve in thick slices.
Kitty Travers is owner of La Grotta Ices, London SE16
Claudia Roden’s orange and almond cake
This is a moist cake that can be served as a dessert with cream.
Serves 12
oranges 2 large
eggs 6
caster sugar 250g
baking powder 1 tsp
ground almonds 250g
Wash and boil the oranges whole for 1½ hours or until they are very soft.
When cool enough to handle, cut them open, remove the pips, and puree the oranges, including the peels, in a food processor.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar. Add the baking powder and almonds and mix well. Then mix thoroughly with the orange puree and pour into a buttered and floured cake tin – preferably non stick and with a removable base.
Bake at 190C/gas mark 5 for an hour. Let it cool before turning out.
From A New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden (Penguin, £25). Click here to order a copy from Guardian Bookshop for £20.50
Trine Hahnemann’s fru pigalopp cake
Ever since the first time I came across Fru Pigalopp in a children’s book, I have loved her. She is big and warm and always ready to give a hug; she is all about fun and games; she is always happy and sees possibilities in everything. And she does not mind a bit of chaos. I think we all have a bit of Fru Pigalopp in us, just waiting to come out. This cake is all about her: wild and full of love.
Serves 12
For the cake
butter for the tin
eggs 6 large
caster sugar 300g
plain flour 250g
baking powder 2 tsp
For the cream
vanilla pods 2
egg yolks 4
icing sugar 6 tbsp
double cream 600ml
For the fruit
strawberries 1kg
redcurrants 300g
raspberries 500g
Bake the cake the day before serving it, otherwise it is too difficult to cut.
Butter a 28cm cake tin and line the base with baking parchment. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Beat the eggs and sugar together with an electric whisk until light and fluffy; they should double or even triple in volume and turn pale. Sift over the flour and baking powder and gently fold them in. Pour into the prepared tin and bake in the hot oven for 25 minutes. Check with a skewer if it is baked all the way through; it should emerge clean from the centre of the cake.
Remove from the oven and leave on a wire rack to cool, before removing from the tin. Leave overnight to settle.
To make the cream, cut the vanilla pods in half lengthways and scrape out the seeds with the tip of a sharp knife into a bowl containing the yolks and icing sugar. Beat with an electric whisk until very pale and fluffy. Whip the double cream until very stiff, then fold it into the egg yolk mixture.
Rinse the strawberries, remove the green tops and cut each into halves or quarters, depending on size. Take half the redcurrants and remove the stalks. Rinse all the redcurrants.
Cut the sponge cake into three horizontally with a long serrated knife.
Take a big round serving dish and place the base layer of cake on it. Spread it with one-third of the cream and arrange over one-third of the berries, using half the redcurrants that have been removed from their stalks. Repeat to assemble all three layers, topping the cake with the redcurrants on their stalks.
Leave for 30 minutes before serving. Be careful when carrying to the cake table, and be aware that it is a real challenge to slice neatly, so have the plates ready.
From Scandinavian Baking by Trine Hahnemann (Quadrille, £25). Click here to order a copy from Guardian Bookshop for £20
