Chinese food & Cheesecake

We had Leigh’s friends’ Greg and Janine round for a meal last Saturday. When thinking of what to cook for them – the answer to us was obvious – Chinese! We cooked three meats – roast duck, spare ribs and chicken wings. And also four veg – oyster & shitake mushrooms, pak choi & asparagus. Served with boiled rice.

Home cooked Chinese food prep

Home cooked Chinese meal

For dessert, I baked for us my pecan & butterscotch cheesecake with Oreo biscuit base. Served with pouring cream. A very tasty and satisfying meal!

Pecan & butterscotch cheesecake

The cheesecake recipe I use is one of my favourite things to bake. It is from The Australian Women’s Weekly: Cheesecakes: baked and chilled book. My mother-in-law got me this when she found out that I was trying out cheesecake recipes for Leigh as it’s his favourite dessert. I am so glad she did, as the best cheesecake recipe I've ever tried is in this book! I've not tried another cheesecake recipe since and always get requests to make this one time and time again. I've tweaked it by using Oreo biscuits for the base.

Ingredients:

Base

150g Oreo biscuits, cream centres removed

50g butter, melted

Filling

500g cream cheese, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

165g (3/4 cup) caster sugar

2 eggs

1 tbsp plain flour

60g (1/2 cup) pecans, roasted and chopped

Topping

75g brown sugar

40g butter

1 tbsp cream

 

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160°C / 140°C fan-forced.

Grease and line a 20cm spring form tin.

2. Process biscuits until fine. Add butter, process until combined.

Press mixture over base of tin. Place tin into refrigerator for 30 minutes.

3. Make filling by beating cheese, extract and sugar in medium bowl with electric mixture until smooth.

Beat in the eggs. Stir in flour and nuts.

4. Pour filling into tin and bake for about 45 minutes.

5. Cool cheesecake in oven with door ajar.

6. Make topping by heating ingredients in a small saucepan until smooth.

7. Spread topping over cheesecake.

Refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.