Caramel Crunch Cheesecake Recipe

Tools and utensils :

- Food processor or some heavy object 

- Microwave or just stove

- Oven

- Electric mixer

- Scraper 

- Whisk

- 6 inch push up cake tins 

- Non stick frying pan 

- Refrigerator

( Conclusion : if you are in DQ this is impossible to make )

Ingredients :

The base :

9 McVities Digestive Biscuits - Finely crushed 

around 70g of melted butter

1 Tbsp of maple syrup

The cheesecake :

375g of cream cheese

70g of sugar 

50ml of non dairy whipping cream

1 egg

2 tbsp of full cream milk

1 tsp of vanilla essence 

1 tbsp of flour

The Caramel Crunch :

1/2 cup of sugar

1/4 non diary whipped cream

1 tbsp of maple syrup

1 heapful tbsp of butter

1/2 cup water

1 tbsp of lime juice ( I wanted to use lemon juice but I realise I didn't have any lemons [ oh the irony { I was referring to my latest facebook status }])

Pinch of salt 

The Decorations :

Whipped cream

Mini Kinder Buenos

The Secret Ingredient :

Love & Sincerity ( kah kah kah )

How it's done :

Disclaimer : If you're only interested on how it's done and don't want to hear any of my rants read the writings in bold only.

So first, grease the bottom of the push up cake tins. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius. Mix the crushed biscuits with the butter and maple syrup. Honestly I had no idea exactly how much melted butter I actually used. Just follow your heart and add a little at a time until they become one slightly crumbly ball - the kind when you press it, it'll leave dents. Too much butter and it'll be too greasy. But even then, its still edible though, so whatever, let's not worry too much about that. Place the combined ingredients in the cake tin and press it down until it's nice and smooth. Bake in the oven for 9 minutes.

About the biscuits, I actually wouldn't really recommend using McVities'. Texture-wise it is excellent, but taste-wise, I'd go with Hup Seng's Cream Crackers. You are free to use whatever biscuits. And feel free to crush the biscuits in whatever way you prefer. I used to smash them biscuits with anak lesung. But since I have a food processor, that's all history now.

Next beat the cream cheese with the sugar. Truth be told, the cake was a tad too sweet, 70g was the amount I used but next time I'm making this I will reduce the amount of sugar to half since the caramel is already so freakin sweet. Add in the non dairy whipping cream. I usually use dairy whipping cream, but apparently the whipping cream I thought I could finally use was actually expired. *sigh* The good thing about non dairy whipping cream is that they are cheaper, the not so good, they have very artificial flavors to it as opposed to dairy whipping creams which has the natural creamy taste of dairy - this may vary according to which brand you use. Whip in the egg, milk, vanilla essence, and flour. Mix them all together until they are smooth with no lumps. You don't want to overbeat them. We don't have any intention to incorporate more air in the batter. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees celcius for 7 minutes, lower the temperature to 120 and bake for another 45 minutes.

Now, when you have around twenty minutes for the cheesecake to get out of the oven, mix all the ingredients for the caramel crunch in a non stick frying pan or saucepan and put in on your stove on high heat if you are confident, or medium low, if you want to be safe. (i'm not trying to give a joke here, this has nothing to do with safety measures, this is all about how you believe your caramel will turn out to be like ) Let it simmer and boil and let the heat do it's thang while constantly stirring with a wisk and keeping an eye to the change of the color. This whole caramel thing, just google caramel and look at how the color of a caramel is supposed to look like. And once the mixture starts the become gooey and once the color is a shade or two lighter than what you perceive caramels should be the color of, turn of the heat immediately and keep on stirring, because it's going to continue to cook with the hot pan. We want an even distribution of heat throughout the whole caramel. Just follow your guts, because contrary to popular beliefs; caramels aren't really that tricky. You just have to believe in yourself - even if you're color blind.

Now that you're done with the caramel, the cheesecake should be ready to get out of the oven. The cheesecake should be pretty firm at the sides, it should rise a little compared to the middle, and if you gently shake the tin (don't forget to wear mittens my friend) the middle would seem wobbly. While the caramel is still gooey and the cheesecake is still hot, pour the caramel on top of the cheesecake evenly. Let them cool for a bit and refrigerate overnight or at least for five hours.

After refrigerating the cake, the caramel should be hard to the touch. I knocked the caramel with the other end of my palette knife so that it will have a web of really pretty cracks. Pull out the cake gently, then put it somewhere a cake should call a home. I piped the whipped cream using a wilton 1M nozzle, and decorated with mini Kinder Buenos. Unleash your creativity for the decorations, do whatever you like. 

And then eat the cake. And give it to the people that you love. And we all live happily ever after.

The end.

how it looks like on the inside. Yums

TASUR : Berdialog Dengan Gereja - Mujahid Yusof Rawa

Sebelum tu, apa itu TASUR? TASUR adalah ringkasan bagi 'Thoughts and sentiments upon reading:' Kenapa tak guna perkataam 'review' je? Sebab review dan TASUR tak sama. Ok, sekian info tentang itu.

Buku ini telah membuka mata saya tentang pelbagai perkara, ia juga telah memberi satu sudut pandang yang berbeza kepada saya tentang isu kalimah 'Allah' yang hangat terpampang di dada-dada akhbar beberapa tahun yang lepas.

1. Selepas membaca buku ini, baru saya sedar betapa besarnya peranan dialog dalam mewujudkan keharmonian serta menyelesaikan masalah di dalam masyarakat. Jika kita lihat kepada kebanyakan masalah yang timbul di dalam masyarakat kita, kebanyakannya disebabkan oleh ketidakfahaman di antara satu sama lain, menilai sesuatu perkara mengikut kaca-mata kita sendiri, dan anggapan berdasarkan 'generalization'. Dengan dialog, kesefahaman dapat diwujudkan apabila kedua-dua pihak dapat menyuarakan tentang sesuatu isu itu mengikut sudut pandang mereka dengan cara yang baik dan aman.

2. Saya juga berasa sangat kagum dengan usaha penulis Dato' Dr. Mujahid Yusof Rawa menangani isu kalimah 'Allah' yang bermula pada tahun 2010 dengan memulakan inisiatif dialog. Usaha beliau membuatkan saya yang tidak begitu gemar dengan bidang politik sedar bahawa jika kuasa itu berada di tangan insan-insan yang bertanggungjawab, harapan untuk sesuatu perubahan yang menakjubkan tak akan pernah pudar.

3. Tanpa saya sedari, sebenarnya dahulu saya juga termakan dengan putar-belit media tentang isu ini, Saya juga termakan dengan sangka buruk sesetengah golongan terhadap penganut agama kristian. Selepas menyelesaikan buku ini, barulah saya fahami isu yang sebenar.

Satu aspek yang saya terfikir tetapi tidak disebut oleh penulis adalah tentang kejahilan masyarakat. Menurut penulis, kejahilan dan sensitiviti masyarakat menjadi permainan politik sesetengah pihak, namun bagi saya kejahilan masyarakat itu sendiri adalah sesuatu yang amat perlu dititikberatkan, malahan merupakan esen utama mengapa negara kita menghadapi pelbagai masalah.

Sejak timbulnya isu ini, saya sentiasa berada di pihak yang tidak merasakan ianya merupakan satu masalah bagi penganut agama kristian di negara ini untuk menggunakan kalimah 'Allah'. Malahan, saya berasa sangat malu apabila umat islam dari negara lain mempersoalkan betapa ceteknya pengetahuan umat islam di Malaysia dan kehairanan mereka dengan ledakan emosi majoriti daripada kita tentang isu yang pada hakikatnya sangat remeh. Oleh itu, seperti yang telah saya katakan. Kejahilan masyarakat merupakan satu perkara yang tidak boleh kita pandang enteng malah kita harus melipatgandakan usaha bagi menangani masalah masyarakat yang jahil dan hanya mengamalkan Islam berlandaskan apa yang sudah terbiasa di dalam masyarakat dan bukan yang seperti dikehendaki oleh syariat Islam.

Walaubagaimanapun, usaha penulis tetap merupakan usaha yang patut dicontohi, Pada masa yang sama, moga-moga masyarakat kita semakin hari, keluar daripada belenggu kejahilan.