Attempt Two

27.06.2012

9:13 p.m.

Well, attempt two felt marginally better than yesterday. It took me about an hour and a half to put everything together, although I must add that though I had hung curd ready at hand, I made the whipped cream from scratch [clearly, trusting the packaged one from godknowswhen wasn’t the brightest thing to do]. This time I went in for an Irish Coffee and Cream Cheesecake minus the Irish bit. The digestive biscuit crust came out pretty well; I only wish I hadn’t left in the oven after it was well done. Slightly charred crust aside, the customary post-procedure licking of the batter bowl turned out to be a slightly disheartening discovery of the fact that everything was a little too sour despite my almost doubling the sugar indicated in the recipe to compensate for the tanginess of the curd. Morning should hopefully bring palatable results.

• ·         Never have a friend around, especially in the initial stages where you’re trying to gather all your ingredients together; you’ll only end up reading the recipe over and over again and not remember a single word by the time you get to the fridge door.
• ·         Also, you can completely forget about the whole recording-things-as-you-make-them-happen thing when the aforementioned friend is around and your background soundtrack consists of continuous comments about your first attempt at le cheesecake.
• ·         If you’re into the whole health thing [which in all likelihood, you aren’t. I mean come on, are you trying to torture yourself reading about a cheesecake when you’re on that diet?], in the world of cheesecakes, relativity is everything. Granted there’s no such thing as a healthy cheesecake, but you can’t ignore the fact that a hung curd cake is less artery and bowel clogging than the cream cheese variant.
• ·          Also, homemade whipped cream cuts the unnecessary preservatives out of the equation.
• ·         Most importantly, the kitchen-minus-cats rule applies for the egg beating and cream whipping as well.

28.06.2012
9:16 a.m.
You’d think the second attempt would give better results than the first but I suppose that’s why they call it beginner’s luck. The little readjustment of the quantity of gelatin turned out to be miscalculated a tad bit and my poor little cake’s spine buckled painfully as soon as the springform was removed. However, the amount of tanginess was exponentially reduced in this batch and the coffee brought with it a whiff of refreshing pre-taste smell.

• ·         Using a knife to loosen the cake from its mould works way better than a metal spatula, particularly when the crust is made out of crackers/digestive biscuits.

9:46 p.m.
Talk about varying opinions! According to [fairly] reliable sources, this cake was way too tangy and made the first one seem better in comparison. Personally, I’m still unable to get my taste buds to recognize this infamous sourness and neither is le mother. It must be some sort of wrong genetic wiring or something.

Well, I finished too solid and too liquid; tangy and too tangy and my inner Goldilocks is praying the next one is just right. However, The Perfect One is going to have to wait at least a week to materialize because I’m beginning to get these uncomfortably strong vibes that suggest my near and dear ones are soon going to burn me at a stake if I stuff anymore cheesecake down their throats. Coming in the near future, though, The Hulk Cake!

Apparently This Is Called Actual Blogging

26.06.2012

2:02 p.m.

The beginning of summer holidays always brings with it a million possibilities, most if which you spent cooking up when you were supposed to be concentrating on the following day’s exam, and this summer, monsoon rather, is pretty much that. Clichéd as it may be on a multitude of levels, I decided to combine two of my passions together and make a self-proclaimed productive vacation out of it .

After a fortnight of trying to find the right recipes, the right equipment, the muslin cloth and what not, today I finally decide to master the art of making the perfect cheesecake. To all my out-of-India living counterparts, yes, this is a big deal as I have to substitute half the regular ingredients with makeshift Indian equivalents and make do with D-I-Y homemaker recipes off the worldwide web and this could very well be an incredible disaster that I get yelled at for when le mother gets home from work this evening.

I start with buying a whole lot of yoghurt that is to be hung in the ever evasive muslin cloth [read, really thin cotton fabric that I settled for when the whole muslin and cheesecloth deal didn’t work]. So here goes nothing.

2:24 p.m.

The deed has been done, the curd has been hung.

Things I have learnt in the past 22 minutes:

• ·         It’s probably smarter to shoo all the cats out of the kitchen before you open any yoghurt tubs.
• ·         If you squeeze the whole thing a little before tying up the cloth, it probably speeds up the draining process. [I’ll know for sure in a few hours.]
• ·         Hanging the cloth bag from somewhere works better than letting it rest in a big sieve as suggested by the original recipe I looked up online. Again, I emphasize the importance of getting rid of the cats before you hang anything anywhere.
• ·         The little contraption you made out of heroically balanced yoghurt tubs and vessels to catch the dripping whey that you were so proud of will most probably slip out of place under the increasing weight of the liquid by the time you’re done typing out a couple hundred words and may need readjusting every few minutes if not permanently corrected.

9:00 p.m.

The curd is as hung as it can get on its own. I’ll give it a final squeeze before working with it. Tooo the kitchen!

• ·         It will do you a lot of good to look up cooking measurement conversions online especially if you’re using mixed recipes. Apparently one envelope of gelatin doesn’t translate to one entire 50g packet of gelatin. Who knew!

10:07 p.m.

Well, the cream cheese mixture is in the fridge, thickening. The whipped cream is ready to be folded in [I must mention, however, that I’m doubting it’s integrity as I forgot to check the expiry date on the cover before whipping it]. Although the cookies and cream recipe I’m using doesn’t require the crust to be baked, I’m popping it into the oven for a few as it seems a little questionably buttery.

• ·         Crush the cookies by hand or a potato masher before you stuff them in a mixer with the butter and expect them to be turned into the delightfully crumbly crust mix. Unless you like your mixer jammed, that is.
• ·         Even after following the above step, your crust mix may not necessarily have the exact crumble delightfulness level as you pictured in your head.

10:14 p.m.

Okay so the crust was bubbling when I took it out of the oven; looks like the whipped cream isn’t the only thing around me that has a questionable integrity at the moment. Then again, one can hope for happy accidents. I believe the cream cheese has “thickened not set” by now and it’s time to open the fridge.

10:37 p.m.

Everything has been mixed, folded, poured, sprinkled, layered, decorated and put in the fridge to be set as instructed [more or less]. One can just wait now and hope for the best.

• ·         You might want to make sure your pan is actually 9” in diameter and not 12” beforehand.
• ·         You might also want to inform your family members that you’re blogging and not checking mail every few minutes, especially when your mom has almost zero tolerance towards using the internet when family’s around and expects you to help around the kitchen in the breaks.
• ·         On a slightly different note, the curd bag squeezing thing mentioned earlier that was hoped to help speed the wheying out process was fairly effective. I’m told that this usually requires overnight draining otherwise. Oh and hung curd looks pretty cool when you open out the cloth. I’ve put the leftover bit in an airtight box and into the fridge for tomorrow’s attempt in case of today’s failure.

27.06.2012

9:41 a.m.

The cake has been sprung in one piece. Baking the crust made it hold really well though it was a bit of a feat getting it to unhold the springform tray itself. The bits of cake stuck to the side of the tray tasted fairly edible, albeit a little sour, and though I was aiming more for the sickeningly sweet cookies and cream heaven, let’s pretend I intended to make the traditional sourish version anyway.

10:25 a.m.

Verdict:

Tastewise, I’m fairly satisfied. It turned out sweet with a slight tang at the end. Texture, however needs some work. Either the gelatin was too much or the whipped cream was too old, so it was leaning towards the heavy side and a little flat. A few more cookies in the middle couldn’t hurt either. I must however mention that it was extremely satisfying cutting that little triangular slice out and see it resemble the picture in the recipe book almost perfectly.

Overall, I’d give it a 7.8/10.

Attempt two shall follow later today, mainly because I want to use up the hung curd before it spoils. More cake disasters coming soon!