INTRODUCTION
Life as a food blogger has his/her fair share of pressures. He/she will have to design a dish, prepare the dish, decorate the dish and take picture for the blog. A poorly taken picture may ruin all his efforts putting in for the dish he or she prepared.
All bloggers will have its own strengths and weaknesses and some of my weaknesses are cake cutting, decoration and photographing. I am especially wary of cutting an 9” inch diameter cakes. I am not fully satisfy with the images in this post and I shall improve on it.
Though I do not really like the colour of red dragon fruit, however, I am amazed by the visual presentation that it can create for cakes and pastry. I have blogged about red dragon fruit pie bars yesterday and have another half a red dragon fruit left. I thought it would be a good idea to use it for some cheese cakes. I looked up my favourite dessert cookbook “The Essential Dessert Cookbook” published by Murdock Books 2007 and found this Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake that I have always wanted to try but do not have the opportunity as it is not a seasonal fruit in Singapore and Malaysia. Prices of raspberry were rather costly and readers may not have a chance to prepare the cake if I blogged about it. So I have decided to use red dragon fruits for the cake.
WHAT IS REQUIRED
For Biscuit Crust
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150 grams of plain sweet biscuits
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50 grams of melted unsalted butter
For Fillings
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500 grams cream cheese (at room temperature)
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125 grams caster sugar
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80 ml (1/3 cup) lemon juice
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315 ml (1 1/4 cups) of creamed (whipped)
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250 grams of red dragon fruit (meshed and become puree)
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<font face="Microsoft PhagsPa"3 tablespoons of gelatine
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1/3 cup of water
STEPS OF PREPARATION
Preparation of biscuit crust
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Blend the biscuits in a food processor. Add the melted butter to the biscuit crust and mix well.
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Have a 9” diameter spring form baking tin, spoon the crushed biscuits and press firmly against the base of the baking tin. Chilled in the refrigerator for at least half an hour or until firm. Lightly grease the sides of the baking tin with butter.
For biscuits, it can be any type of biscuits. In fact I have used some biscuits that have some meringue on top and therefore you can see some coloured meringues in my biscuit crusts.
Melting the gelatine and preparation of red dragon fruit purees
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Have a metal bowl, put in 1/4 cup of water and sprinkled the gelatine on top of the cold water as evenly as possible. Use a tablespoon to lightly stir the gelatine powder solution and ensure all the gelatine absorb the water.
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Bring a pot of water to boil in a stove. Turn off the heat. Place the metal bowl with gelatine on top of hot water, stir until all the gelatines are dissolved without signs of gelatine powder. Leave the metal bowl floating in the hot water for later use.
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Put the dragon fruits in the food processor and blend it until it become puree form. Add in half of the gelatine and set aside for later use.
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In a standing mixer, whipped the cream until firm peak form and set aside for later use.
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Using the same mixing bowl, put sugar and softened cream cheese.
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Beat until light and smooth. Scrap bottom of the mixing bowl and ensure there are no deposit of cheese at the bottom of mixing bowl.
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Add in half of the gelatine, lemon juice and whipped cream, use the slowest speed of the mixer to whisk until well mixed as indicated in the fourth images.
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Take out the spring form tin from the refrigerator and place some whipped cream cheese on top of the biscuit crust.
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Place two to three tablespoons of dragon fruit puree on top of the whipped creamed and followed by another level of whipped cream cheese.
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Perform the same procedures alternating between whipped cream cheese and dragon fruit puree until all was done. Use a knife to lightly swirl through the cheesecake.
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Lightly tap or shake your baking tin and you will see patterns start to evolve.
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Chilled in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours before serving. Top with whipped cream or additional red dragon fruit or other topping as you wished.
CONCLUSION
Not as difficult as one thinks to make this cake, The visual effect, in my humble opinion is astonishing. While in my red dragon fruit pie bars, the red dragon fruit appeared to be red in colour. However, in this cake, it appeared to be purplish colour which shocked me!
It is a big cake, a 9” inches diameter cheese cake, I am now thinking how I can finish the whole cake! Haha. If you are interested on cheese cakes, you may want to check out my other two cheese cakes – Durian Cheese Cake , Ferraro Rocher Ice Cream Cheese Cake not forgetting the peanut flavour cream cheese ice – cream.
Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.