White Chocolate and Hazelnut Cheesecake Recipe

Here's the recipe again from a cookbook.

Preparation Time: 1 hour
Cooking Time: 1.5 hours
Cooling Time: 3 hours

Ingredients- Base: 150g Rich Tea biscuits, 1 tbsp sugar, 3 tbsp unsalted butter                                   (melted)
                   Filling: 75g hazelnuts, 75g sugar, 1kg cream cheese, 4 large eggs, 1 large egg yolk,  1 tsp vanilla extract, pinch of ground nutmeg, 300g white chocolate, icing sugar.

To make the base: Grind the biscuits to a fine texture in a food processor. In a bowl combine the biscuits with the sugar and the melted butter. Press the mixture on to the base of the springform tin (23cm tin).

To make the filling: Roast the hazelnuts on a dry baking tray in the oven for about 10-15 minutes (on gas mark 6), then rub off their skins. Put the sugar with two tablespoons of water in a pan and heat gently to dissolve, then boil until it is a rich caramel colour. Place hazelnuts on an oiled tray and pour the caramel on top. Leave to harden, then break into pieces and pulse in a food processor until coarsely ground. Set aside.

Pulse the cream cheese in a food processor until smooth, then work in the eggs and egg yolk, vanilla extract and nutmeg. Process until smooth. Melt the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl suspended over saucepan of barely simmering water, ensuring that the water does not touch the base of the bowl. Add the melted chocolate to the mixture and, finally the ground hazelnut.

Pour the mixture on to the base and bake for about 1.5 hours (on gas mark 2) until lightly set. Turn off the oven and leave to go cold and set. Remove from the oven and dust with the icing sugar.

Cheescake

It's the summer holidays and I've got a lot of free time now so I made this awesome cheesecake.

 It's a white chocolate and hazelnut cheesecake, I'm currently searching around for the recipe which I will post up some time later. For now you can enjoy the picture.

Ocarina of Time 3DS + Virtual Console

I bought Ocarina of Time last week and have to say it really is  as good a game as everyone says it is. I never played the original on the N64 so I had to buy this as It's the first 'proper' game I wanted for the 3DS. The game follows the typical Zelda storyline which whilst  is repetitive, I had played Twilight Princess on the Wii which was very similar, does provide a great platform for the great game play to be experienced. The main changes to the 3DS version are the much improved graphics which look great in 3D. As you can see from the video the game looks better, however it looks at its best in full motion compared to photos.

If you haven't played the original then this is absolutely a game worth getting, and is by far the best game available for the 3DS.

Also, just a cool little thing to do with the 3DS virtual console. I downloaded Alleyway just to check this out. Holding start and select then pressing on the Game Boy game you want to play brings up the game in it's original resolution with a cool Game Boy border that works in 3D.

More Nintendogs! (+Cats)

Thought I would introduce my two new pets properly, I decided to get a cat and a chihuahua. I'm not a great fan of cats but they do look so cute in the game, just look at their eyes. I've named the cat Rolo and the chihuahua Peanut.

Cookie won the Nintendogs Cup for disc throwing and got a nice little crown, he seems to like showing it off.

I picked up about 5 of these hats on a walk so Rolo tried them on, pretty classy.

Lemon Tart Recipe

I thought it was a good idea to give the recipe after my last post, this is taken from one of my cookbooks.

Preparation time- 40 minutes
Chilling time- 3 hours
Cooking time 35 minutes
Use a 23 cm (9 inch) tart tin

Ingredients:  

Pastry: 175g plain flour, 25g icing sugar, 2 tbsp cold water,
  25g cocoa, 125g unsalted butter, 75g dark chocolate (60%) grated,
  pinch of salt, 1 large egg yolk.

Filling: 3 fresh unwaxed lemons, 4 large eggs, 150g castor sugar, 150 ml double cream.

To make the pastry - Sift together the flour, cocoa, salt and icing sugar. Rub in cold butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Mix the egg yolk with the water and add to the mixture to make the dough.
Gather the pastry into a ball, wrap it in greaseproof paper and chill in the fridge for about half an hour.
Roll out the pastry and line the tart tin.
Prick the pastry base with a fork in several places and chill for at least 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C/Gas mark 6. Line the pastry case with foil and baking beans and bake blind for 15 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for 5 more minute.
Remove the tin from the oven and sprinkle the grated chocolate evenly around, then leave to cool.

To make filling - Finely grate the zest from the lemons into a mixing bowl.
Squeeze and strain the lemon juice and add it to the zest with the sugar.
Whisk until the sugar has dissolved then whisk in the eggs and cream until the mixture is smooth.

Pour the filling into the cooled pastry case and carefully return it to the oven.
Bake for about 30-35 minutes until just set. Remove from the oven and leave
on a wire rack to cool completely before removing from the tin.
Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Baking

What's the only thing better than noodles?? Dessert!!! Dessert is my most favourite thing, from muffins to cheesecake I can eat so much of everything.
Getting a load of sweet treats from the bakery or supermarket is great every now and then but I prefer making the effort to bake my favourite things.
Last week I had a go at making a lemon tart with chocolate pastry and after a couple of attempts got it looking pretty good, looking at it again just makes me want to make another one it was soo tasty.It is definitely the best thing I've created in my kitchen.

Wii U

Well, I'm impressed. The rumours about the control for Nintendo's next console were true, It has a six and half inch screen in its centre. It allows for some new and interesting methods of control and will enhance games at least in some small ways.

 The videos of games in HD graphics look very impressive and are on par with current HD consoles. It's exciting to see the kind of games that appear on other consoles as well as the classic Nintendo games on one console, HD Zelda looked amazing.

This is only a brief comment after watching the presentation and there is a ton of 3DS stuff I will get through when I've got a bit more time.

3DS System Update

A really nice update from Nintendo today, finally have access to the 3DS shop and more importantly, the internet browser (I'm writing this using said browser). So far the shop is pretty empty with only 3 old Game Boy games on offer, one of them being a tennis game I remember playing years ago. I'm looking forward to seeing games I didn't get a chance to play before appear in the shop.

I'm finding the browser to be useful and since it's faster than the browser on my phone I will probably be using it quite a lot. I can see the browser becoming very useful when I'm stuck in the middle of playing a game and need a guide or need to read a review of a game found in the shop as software can be paused and the browser launched in the meantime.
Also, a couple of presents from Nintendo in the form of a free game, Excitebike, and a 3D Pokedex.

 They are nice although unspectacular, probably something to make up for the two month wait for this update.
The big Nintendo news will be coming later today at E3, I'll be making a post of my initial thoughts on that later.

Nintendogs

Just a little dog update, I decided Cookie needed a hat and he seems to like it.

 He's also been making some more friends, and gets along very well with the cats in the game.