Friday, April 15, 2011

Black-and-white-and-red-all-over cheesecake

Q: what's black and white and red all over?
A: a sunburned penguin!!!

When was the last time you had a good laugh? These days, in a world where we are all grown up and so serious about study or making money or bringing up the family, there's not much opportunity for guffawing and sniggering. Alright, to be honest, I have a giggle each week when 30 Rock is on television - there's something endearing and admirable about Liz Lemon's determination and Jack Donaghy's bizarre business pronouncements: "He built GE into the greatest company on Earth, and the Earth into one of the top three planets in the universe!"

So where does this cheesecake come into it? Well, I had a pretty good laugh - or it could be construed as a sob of despair - after I took this cheesecake out of the oven. It was advertised as a 'black and white cheesecake', but the black is not quite black, and the white is more of an off-white with a hint of clotted cream. Dulux's paint chart would probably have a closer match. So I covered it with a red raspberry puree. At least it's RED. Sort of.


Black and White (and Red) Cheesecake
serves 8

Ingredients
300g Oreo cookies
50g butter, melted
500g cream cheese, softened
2 tblsp plain flour
100g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
150ml sour cream
180g white chocolate, melted and cooled
100g frozen or fresh raspberries
50g caster sugar

Method
1.  Heat oven to 180C (fan-forced 160C).
2.  Pull apart the biscuits and scrape out the filling (discard or eat the filling later). Crush the biscuits in a food processor into fine crumbs, then add the melted butter. Mix until combined then press into the base of a 20cm springform tin. Bake for 5 minutes, then cool.
3.  Beat the cream cheeese with the flour, sugar, vanilla, eggs and sour cream until light and fluffy.  Stir in the white chocolate and pour into the tin.
4. Bake for 40 minutes and check - it should be set, but wobbly in the centre. Leave in the tin to cool completely.
5.  For the raspberry puree: Crush the raspberries in a food processor until almost liquified, then push through a sieve to remove the seeds.  Put the puree and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Simmer gently for 5 minutes until it thickens slightly.  Cool, then spread over the cheesecake.

recipe adapted from Olive (January 2011)

I like Oreo biscuits because they are quite light in texture.
Other ingredients include eggs, white chocolate and cream cheese.


You have to scrape the filling from the Oreos before crushing them to dirt.
Only problem is, what do you do with the sweet innards? I eventually had to turf most of this because it was too sweet to eat and some ants were making their way across the benchtop to the bowl.

Crushed frozen raspberries. These were crushed while still frozen although you should probably leave them defrost first. Looks like raspberry sherbert...

So the inside of the cheesecake is whiteish, but not as white as, say, Dulux Vivid White (paint colour)

The so-called white can also be compared to Porter's Paints' Lamb's Wool

How does it taste? This is quite a rich, dense cheesecake due to the white chocolate in the filling. The Oreo base was the best part, in my opinion. Next time, I will stick to my trusted Vogue Entertaining recipe.

26 comments:

  1. Oh yummy! You could turn the innards into a frosting for something else?
    This looks great, but I could probably do without the white choc and just have plain cheesecake filling :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is incredibly beautiful! Red, white and black goes so well together! A sunburnt penguin? Sadistic as it may sound, I wouldn't mind eating one:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't care what colour it is Oreo + cheese cake = extreme Yum!! Btw. you can use the Oreo innards to make cake pops :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. beautiful bold colours of the cake. altho not exactly black/white but im sure the taste is great! (don't think i've ever seen a white white cake before unless it's the frosting/fondant on the outside! lol)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Haha love it! The Oreo scraping remind me of that commercial with the little boy - "First you twist it, then you lick it, then you dunk it" except yours is "First you twist it, then you scrape it, then you make it in to a cheesecake" lol :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Cute joke, and a gorgeous looking cheesecake. Oreos as a base sounds so decadently good!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ooh, yum! Cheesecake and penguins is always a good combination. Would be very tempted to try this out, maybe with a blueberry version. Whenever I think of specific biscuits for a cheesecake crust, it tends to be ginger ones, so enjoying seeing some new ideas...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Love the title! Colour is vibrant and appetizing.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ooooooh, a cheesecake with an oreo base! The raspberry topping looks so delicious and vibrant. I'm sure anyone who ate it wouldn't care about the shade of white once they tasted it!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Haha I needed this today. I love that you made a cheesecake based on a joke. and yeah, thirty rock is totally one of the high points of my week. Although that would change if I made this cheesecake...looks fantastic!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Love this blog and this post....I also LOVE 30rock...and this cheesecake looks divine...colors look great to me! I also appreciate the step by step photos...I think I'll make this for my annual Mother's Day dessert party! :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. I think the raspberry topping was quite inspired! Scraping off the Oreo's must have been a bit of a drag. I wonder if good old Chocolate Ripples wouldn't be less labour intensive next time?

    ReplyDelete
  13. aww, this cheesecake looks fabulous. I'm thinking of making a cheesecake for Easter. I'll go and checkout your post of the bestever cheesecake.

    ReplyDelete
  14. This cake is super awesome. joke or no joke. I will have a piece of this any day.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Haha, I remember when I thought that penguin joke was the most hilarious thing. Wouldn't it be great to forget all those jokes you heard (and told) as a kid so you could laugh yourself stupid again?

    I think it looks quite lovely, and would be suspicious it is mimicked the white of Dulux Vivid White. That crazy super white colour makes me think of that terrible fake cream!

    ReplyDelete
  16. This looks really good! The black and red are just AWESOME! Definitely the star of the table, hands down! :)

    ReplyDelete
  17. It's like a newspaper cake? Black and white and read all over? lol. Sounds delicious. I remember as little kids we'd scrape the cream off cream biscuits with our teeth.

    ReplyDelete
  18. That cheesecake is gorgeous! Colour-wheel be damned!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Loved the penguin joke heehee - doesn't matter if the white was slightly creamy in color - the amount of oreo crust you have must have made it one deeeelicious cheesecake!

    ReplyDelete
  20. I used to use Golliwog biscuits as my go-to biscuit base of choice but am soooo disappointed that they're not made anymore =( Besides, I was quite happy chomping them on their own!

    ReplyDelete
  21. What white and red all over? A sunburnt polar bear :)

    ReplyDelete
  22. Bel, this cheesecake with oreo crust and raspberry on top just look fantastic...gorgeous combination of flavors. Have a great week :-)

    ReplyDelete
  23. I just found your blog and I LOVE it...your pictures and writing are great.

    I am following you and cannot wait to see what is next!

    This cheesecake looks amazing. Oreos and raspberry together might be the best combo I have ever heard of..

    ReplyDelete
  24. Oreos!!! Gaaawd, diggin the base here. Can you bake my next biryhday cake?

    ReplyDelete
  25. What a sexy looking cheesecake! I wager it tastes as great as it looks!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Love this blog and this post. Incredibly beautiful cake.

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin