Sundays

Sundays do tend to be about food round my way and today has been no exception. Yesterday the blonde and I headed out to the country to inspect the new house of a teacher friend and fellow Bridgewater fan (whatever else was moving chaos the tea was impeccably turned out) the house is great with a very promising garden, not however as promising as the teachers fathers garden... It has a lot of fruit trees – several kinds of apples, some really good plums, and a damson all gave up their best for us. So fecund were they that even the fact that I was wearing heals didn’t stop me getting bags of fruit. I’ve got some serious plans for all this fruit, now all I need to do is get organised before it goes over.

My last foraging expedition was a couple of Sundays ago when the Scottish one and I went out hunting for blackberries, I baked some into an apple and blackberry version of Apple pudding cake (I seem to remember we liked it!) but the majority went into blackberry whisky (one big jar half filled by 70cl of cheap whisky, 200g of sugar and as many blackberries as it took to fill the rest of the jar). The Scottish one tested it today and has declared it delicious (hopefully my turn soon) with no sign of secondary fermentation (the original Dom Perignon and I have both had problems with this – in my case with homemade mincemeat which is a bit less glamorous than his Champagne experiments) and so we’re hoping to find enough blackberries to make more, possibly using brown sugar which I hope will add another layer of complexity and general deliciousness to the overall flavour.

Today however is about cheesecake – made by request for lunch. I’ve not made a cheesecake for years and had vaguely remembered it being a slightly complicated process. It’s not. This is a version of a Nigella chocolate and lime cheesecake but mine is a lot smaller, lunch was only for 4 and there’s only so much left over cheesecake a person can eat without slipping into a larger dress size. I’m not sure how fashionable cheesecake is these days but it tastes as good as it ever did so here’s the recipe (for the original and probably best see ‘Nigella Bites’ or possibly her website)

1 packet of crunchy chocolate chip cookies – double choc chip won’t go amiss (150g)

40g of butter

100g caster sugar

2 whole eggs + 1 egg yolk

2 tubs (400g) cream cheese (might as well be the light version)

Juice of 2 ½ limes

1 small (17cm) springform cake tin needs to be made as waterproof as possible. It needs a sheet of tinfoil big enough to cover the base of the tin (Inside, and clipped into place by the sides) and to wrap up almost to the top of the outside of the tin. A second sheet of tinfoil wrapped around the outside of the tin should then do the trick.

Next the biscuits should be blitzed into a powder, then the butter added and the whole lot blitzed again into a buttery crumby ball. Spread this on the base of the prepared tin and put in the fridge to harden.

Set the oven to 180°, boil a kettle, and dig out a roasting tin big enough to fit the cake tin with room to spare round all the edges.

Whip the cream cheese until smooth, add the sugar and beat again, then add the eggs and lime juice, poor the gloopy limey mix into the prepared tin and place it in the roasting tin, half fill the tin with boiling water (and definitely below the level of the tinfoil!) put the whole lot – very carefully – into the oven and bake for about an hour. It should basically look set but with the hint of wobble to it.

Immediately remove as much foil as possible without undoing the sides and leave to cool on a rack – when it’s properly cool put in the fridge, still in the tin, for 2 or 3 hours (minimum) to make sure it’s well set and then eat.