Baked lemon cheesecake, Donna Hay style

The recipe for this Baked Lemon Cheesecake was in the same Sunday colour supplement as the previous Cinnamon Cheesecake post, and is also a Donna Hay recipe.  It had a fresh whipped cream topping, but I didn't feel that it would add much to the taste, so decided against using it.  The recipe was fairly straightforward to follow and I had the cake ready for the oven fairly soon.  Mmm, fresh lemon rind, yummy!

A quick sprinkling of icing sugar and this baby was ready to serve.  And oh my, was it good!!  I posted the initial photo on my Facebook page at the time, and got great feedback from just the photo!  As it was made not long after the cinnamon cheesecake, we were more than happy to share.  Just be sure to have a hot cup of coffee, or cold glass of milk, ready when you have your slice...

Cinnamon cheesecake a la Donna Hay

Mmm, doesn't that cake look great - a baked cheesecake (here's Donna's classic baked cheesecake recipe for you to see), with fresh local Scottish strawberries.  This beauty was a Donna Hay recipe that I cut from a Sunday newspaper colour supplement, and it didn't disappoint.  The original recipe was actually for a pear and cinnamon cake, but when I read it through the pears were actually just for decoration on top.  They were cooked to start with in a sugary syrup, and placed on top at the end, with the syrup drizzled over, but still...

I felt that it was going to be a fair bit of extra time and work involved, for not that much pay-off.  So I cheated a little.  I made the cake according to the recipe instructions (I always do that the first time, then I write notes in case I want to tweak things for subsequent bakings) and that was all fine and went well.  I felt it looked a bit naked when fully done - smelt amazing, but looked naked.  We had some fresh berries in the fridge, so on they went, with a touch of real Canadian maple syrup for added taste.  You can't really see the drizzle in the photo, but it was there...

This was the first time in a while that I'd baked a cheesecake, and it won't be the last!  It was really delicious, with a light delicate cinnamon taste.  Another winner from the fabulous Ms Hay!!

G'day mate, fancy some chocolate?

I've started going to an exercise class on a Monday morning, as they have a creche so Mini-2 is ok there.  They also have a class on a Friday afternoon, but I've not made it to that yet - one week I had a bad dizzy spell and today I felt like baking instead.  We had a playdate this afternoon with friends we hadn't seen for months, and we were all looking forward to it.  I thought cookies would go down nicely for all.

I wanted to try another from the Donna Hay (Australia's Nigella Lawson) book my friend C gave me for a birthday a couple of years ago, Simple Essentials - Chocolate.  There were a few from which to choose, but the Double Chocolate ones looked perfect for the time I had available and I had all the ingredients to hand.  They needed a lot of chocolate - some melted into the mix, some chopped into the mix.  See what I mean? That's a lot of chocolate chips, and more were added after this photo.

The mix was a bit dry, but easily made over 3 dozen small-medium sized cookies, yum.  And they went down a storm with our friends...  Want one?

Donna Hay chocolate brownies

Weeeeellll, they do taste good.  Just somehow, not quite chocolatey enough.  Or perhaps rich enough.  Or something.  Still, that's what trying something new is all about, experimenting and seeing if you like it or not.  Not fussed, in this case.  I have a few brownie recipes that I do like and have worked well a few times, so I think I may just stick to them from now on.  That is, unless I feel like experimenting again.

Australian recipe

No photo just yet, as the chocolate brownies have only just come out of the oven, literally.  My friend Charlotte gave me the Donna Hay - Chocolate cookbook for my birthday last year (or perhaps it was Christmas?).  I believe she's the Australian equivalent of our Nigella Lawson or perhaps Delia Smith.  I've made a few items already and they were deliciously chocolatey.  Then this morning, a local friend Jill gave me some butter that was short-dated and suggested I use it to make brownies while my youngest child was at nursery.  A reasonable suggestion, I thought, so I did it.

Because the recipe is Australian, it uses their measurements of cups not grams.  Luckily I have a lovely set of brightly coloured melamine/plastic measuring cups and spoons (from Lakeland, if you were wondering.  Although I've just checked, and they no longer stock them) which get rare use in our kitchen.  Though looking at the two sets together it would seem that we're missing a pink measuring cup - perhaps the 2/3rds one.  I'll need to check with Mr Becca later on.  British recipes use grams, and thus a set of scales.  American recipes are trickier yet, using a mix of ounces, grams, cups and sticks. 

The brownies came out done on top but soft inside, so here's hoping they're done...