Cheesecake a mi manera: Raspberry Ricotta Cheesecake w Rose Water, White Tea & Sesame

It is very likely that you all know how to make a cheesecake. Just looking at it, one can easily notice what it's made of: a biscuit base and a creamy cheese layer topped with whatever the pastry chef was inspired by.

Frankly, baking makes me nervous because I don't have the heart to follow the recipe :( verbatim - *sigh* - I use shortcuts. My cakes will always lack in butter, sugar, white flour...which will constantly be replaced with honey / whole wheat flour / olive oil. Call it a curse - I am obsessed with the idea of "healthy".

On the other hand, if I bake a cake and use everything I ought to be using, then I will just have a slice and the rest...will be shared among the ones I love. A slice (or more) for each. So everybody will be happy.

Raspberry Ricotta Cheesecake with Rose Water, White Tea and Sesame

Problem solved, I decided not to skimp anymore (!), make a killer cake (hopefully, not literally), take some pictures, blog and boast about it (a little), then cut it piece by piece and give it away.

Inspired by Claude Olivier's variety of cheesecakes and Delicioasa's pink cheesecake, I sat down and planned my signature delight.

Base: melted butter, crushed butter biscuits, toasted sesame.

Creamy cheese layer: ricotta, Philadelphia light, condensed milk, creme fraiche, preserved lemon & orange rind, loose lemon & rose silver tips white tea, rose water, gelatine dissolved in strong white tea.

Top: 800 gr frozen raspberries turned into a delicious home-made marmalade  (berries, sugar, gelatine)

You know the stages - melt the butter, mix it with the crushed biscuits & sesame, bake for 10 minutes, work on the cheese cream, store in the fridge, top with raspberry jam, wait for a couple of hours to set, and finally do one of these things ...

a) enjoy it alone spoon by spoon

b) enjoy it with the ones you love

c) give it away as a present (the sweetest thing one can do)

My conclusion

I have made cheesecake before, but it had never occurred to me to use rose water and white tea. Rose water, which is so natural and obviously used in most Middle Eastern desserts, revamps this classic cake giving it an understated beauty and a haunting "je ne sais quoi" subtle taste. Somebody who would taste it, will have a familiar feeling about it, but wouldn't know for sure where to place it. The toasted sesame seeds are crunchy and, when blended with butter, offered an undertone of tahini and halwa.
Apart from my being curious, DK what made me add a generous pinch of white tea. I had a hunch it could work out just fine. White tea is healthy, an antiviral which protects the heart, lowers the cholesterol (among others), and it is also known to have more properties than green tea. Its taste is subtle and delicate, I often drink it unsweetened in small Japanese tea cups. Lovely. Paired with creamy ricotta, condensed milk and rosewater, the fragile white tea leaves stand on their own to tell a wonderful story: oh, in your urban kitchen you may allow yourself to day dream, mix and match, taste, sample and compare, speed-travel through your senses to far-away realms...

Madras Cheese Cream with Carrots and Ginger

Type of cuisine: Fusion, Indian/French

Difficulty: medium

Time: 30 minutes

Cost: cheap

Availability of ingredients: medium (you might search for onion seeds in a shop or two... but it's worth it)

Yesterday evening I was planning on fixing a quick Thai meal: chicken cakes with ginger and sweet chilly sauce and maybe an Asian noodles salad. 
But I came across a Swiss foodblog http://1001recettes.blogspot.com and fell in love with this photo. 

http://1001recettes.blogspot.com


 No wonder they say that a picture tells 1000 words! 

So I decided to make Velouté de carottes jaunes au mascarpone au curry et gingembre. You can check out  the original recipe here. 

This is my version. 

I used all the ingredients from the original recipe, minus the black sesame, and I replaced the vegetable stock with the chicken stock (that's what I had) and the mascarpone cheese with 0.2% low-fat yoghurt cheese. And to make it more...Thai, I added some coconut milk. To help it set, I used a sachet of gelatin.

I know, I shouldn't have had, but nonetheless it was delicious (and I didn't feel guilty not even a bit).

Here is what you need (for 2 persons):

2 carrots

1 small onion (or half a bigger one)

freshly grated ginger

a knob of butter 

1/4 chicken/vegetable stock dissolved in 6 spoons of warm water

1/4 can of coconut milk or coconut cream

2 spoons of madras curry 

1 spoon of turmeric

1 jar/packet of soft cheese cream (mascarpone or low-fat cream)

1 sachet of gelatin

Method

In a wok melt the butter and add the freshly grated onion, carrots, and allow them a minute or two to soften. When they change colour, add the warm chicken/vegetable stock and let it simmer for 5-7 minutes.

When you see that the water reduces, add the coconut cream or milk, madras and turmeric.

Let it simmer and reduce. To make the whole cream softer, blend it. 

Turn off the gas and let the mixture cool.

In a separate bowl, dissolve the gelatin in a small amount of water.

Add the soft cheese cream and mix with a rubber spoon until the cream becomes fluffy. 

Add the gelatin and pour in 2 glasses.

To decorate, chop a spring onion and sprinkle some onion seeds or, as in the original version, black sesame.

This silky cream is great for a dinner party, to serve next to a couple of prawns on iceberg salad leaves with home-made sweet chilly sauce.

Last night my meal looked like this: 

Grilled Thai chicken cakes with ginger, coriander and spring onions and roast potatoes with a dash of turmeric (for the colour), onion seeds (for decoration) and Camargue salt with crushed curry leaves.

In another posting, I will write about Madras and how to prepare your own if you can't find it in the shop.