The Sixteen Choc Cheesecake

Base:
½ cup milk chocolate biscuit crumbs (1)
½ cup dark chocolate biscuit crumbs (2)
50g melted butter
2 tablespoons orange chocolate flecks (3)
Generous pinch of ground cinnamon

Hard layer:
50g melted dark chocolate (4)


Middle:
2 packs cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla
400g sweetened condensed milk
3 eggs

For main:
200g melted dark chocolate (50-70%) (5)

Cookie Dough:
¼ cup butter
¼ cup brown sugar
¼ cup castor sugar
2 tablespoons water
½ cup plain flour
50g melted semi-sweet chocolate (6)
¼ cup chopped milk chocolate (7)
¼ cup chopped dark chocolate (80%) (8)
¼ cup chopped white chocolate (9)

White chocolate swirl:
50g melted white chocolate (10)

Dark Chocolate swirl:
50g melted dark chocolate (70-80%) (11)


Topping:

Glaze:
25g melted dark choc (70-80%) (12)
Splash chocolate liqueur (13)

Milk and white chocolate lace:
Melted white chocolate (14)
Melted milk chocolate (15)

Dark chocolate curls:
Dark chocolate (60-70%) (16)




Method:

1. Combine base ingredients, press firmly into pan.

2. Pour melted dark chocolate on top and refrigerate until layer is hard.

3. Cookie dough: Cream the butter with the two sugars until light and fluffy. Stir in water, flour, melted chocolate, chocolate pieces, and mix until combined. Set aside.

4. Main mixture: Beat the cream cheese until soft and smooth at medium speed. Add the condensed milk, vanilla and eggs (one at a time) and beat thoroughly at low speed. Reserve some mixture for the swirls.

5. Add chocolate to mixture and continue beating until mixed well.

6. Pour a little chocolate cheesecake mixture in the tin. Add cookie dough in small pieces. Add rest of cheesecake mixture.

7. Halve leftover cheesecake mixture and make swirls with melted milk and dark chocolate. Pour these into the mixture.

8. Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour in a 180 degree preheated oven.

9. Turn off oven and rest cheesecake for 1 hour.

10. Refrigerate cheesecake for 3-4 hours.

11. To make glaze, mix together melted chocolate with chocolate liqueur and brush on.

12. Add chocolate curls and chocolate lattice. Chocolate lattice is made by melting chocolate, adding to piping bag and spreading a thin lattice pattern on a piece of baking paper which is on top of a baking tray that has been in the fridge.

13. Refrigerate for 30 mins.

Crizizzle ma Nizzle

The second the Copha comes out, they all want to know one thing. When are the chocolate crackles coming? Not when is the coconut ice coming, or when is the whatever else you make with a solid block of coconut oil coming, they all want the chocolate crackles. I don't know why those of us without kids, or fetes to attend, don't make chocolate crackles more often. They get enough of a nostalgic reaction from the crowd, and there's just something about the combination of melted vegetable fat, icing sugar and dessicated coconut melting onto your hands that just makes you feel safe, happy, and like you want to smear it on the cat.

Do I even need to give you a recipe? Do I? It's on the Rice Bubble's box for - oh, fine. 4 cups Rice Bubbles, 1 1/2 of icing sugar, 1 of coconut, a block 'o Copha, and three tablespoons of cocoa. Stir together the dry stuff, melt the Copha to make the wet, and fork the lot together before spilling it into cupcake papers and fridging 'til solid.

Makes far too many. You won't even be able to give them away.

The Date Slice of Determination

Oh what a night. The moon is full, the air is blood heat and there's a light breeze. You can positively feel the shenanigans in the air, you can, and I'm at my desk feeling every ounce of energy drain away as I face yet another chapter revision. Just the night to give Kickpleat's restorative oat and nut squares.

I made a few alterations, of course, and the version I present to you below is not the version I used. I think my pan was a couple of centimetres bigger than the one she used, and so there were, ahem, gaps in the baked slice (and I am calling it a slice, because I'm Australian and that's what we do). I will definitely make it again in future using the below quantities. I didn't have any rum to hand, so I threw in the cardamom-nutmeg-ginger-cinnamon combination that goes into all my bakeables. Please note the apple sauce instead of oil or butter. Please also note that you'll have to fridge these after they're done as low fat things don't keep as well as their high fat counterparts.

Beat 2 eggs in a large bowl until frothy. Beat in 1/2 cup of apple sauce, 1/2 cup dark brown sugar until pale. Roughly fork in 1/2 cup self raising flour until just combined. Then fold in 1/2 teaspoon each of cardamom, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon. To this you will add a 100g of walnuts (I figured this equals 1 cup) that you broke up a bit while still in the packet, a cup of rolled oats, and two cups of finely chopped, pitted dates.

Tip into a lightly greased 23cm square pan and bake in a preheated 180 degree oven for around 30 minutes 'til the edges are darkened and the centre is firm. Cool in the pan, slice, make a cup of coffee and get back to work.