The Original Dessert, Ancient Roman Cheesecake

   When I originally heard the phrase, Ancient Roman Cheesecake, dessert was not the first thing that came to mind. Since I am of Italian ancestry on both sides of my family, (except for a Frenchman who crept into the mix from New Orleans during the California Gold Rush) my family on both sides comes from Tuscany. Over the years I've heard a lot of stories about the Roman version of MAXIM ie: the Pompeiian frescoes also known as NSFW or the old term "cheesecake".

These are about the only versions I could find  that didn't involve crazy naked contortions or hairdos made of snakes .

Good call to cut that picture off right about...there. You don't want to know what's going on in the basement.

   Even though I've been cooking Indian food for the last 23 years, I've always been interested in the the food of my ancestors. When I say ancestors, I mean the "waaaaaaaaaaay back when" ancestors. Back to the days of Tarquin and the Ancient Roman Republic. I found that the ancient  Romans traded with India and there are quite a few very common spice link. Cinnamon, pepper, cumin, saffron and asafoetida are among them. There is also a type of Indian Cheesecake that uses chenna cheese, a close cousin to ricotta called chenna poda. Well, it turns out that a recipe that I'd seen for cheesecake that goes back to the very, very, oldest days of the Roman Republic, is nearly identical to the Indian recipe. It was kismet!  It's also extremely simple, easy to make, and if time traveling with your mouth is your thing, it takes dessert baking back to its' earliest days.

Ancient Roman Cheesecake

Here's What You Need:

1 cup of flour
1 and 1/2 cups of ricotta cheese
1 well beaten egg
1 tsp of vanilla
4 squares of dark chocolate
parchment paper
1/3 cup of good honey
A baking sheet

Here's What To Do:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
Put the ricotta in a small bowl and beat it until it's smooth and creamy.
Add the well beaten egg to the ricotta.

Add in the vanilla

Add the ricotta, egg and vanilla mixture to the cup of flour.
Chop the chocolate finely.  I used 1 disc of Chocolate Olive chocolate from Cocoa Planet.

Blend it into the dough.
Put the dough onto a flour work space and knead it until it's smooth.

Divide it into 4 pieces.

Shape each piece into a round
Place the rounds onto a parchment covered baking sheet.

The Romans used to bake these little cakes under a clay cover or dome. I decided to use my clay cloche for the topper just for authenticity sake.You can use an oven-proof clay pot or bowl or if you don't have one. Just put them straight into the oven.

Bake them for between 30 to 40 minutes or until they're firm and slightly golden. If you use a topper for them, remove it for the last 5 minutes of baking to give the cakes some color.
Heat 1/3 of a cup of honey in a small pot. I used mandarin orange honey from Sonoma Harvest Foods. I figured since I was adding chocolate to these little cakes, the orange honey would go well with them.

When it's warm, pour it into a baking dish, and place the just out of the oven cakes in it, to absorb the honey.

Let them soak for at least 30 minutes, flipping them occasionally so that both sides are coated.
Drizzle a bit of honey over each cake.
Serve them up.

   These are not cheesecakes as we normally think of them. They're not overly sweet, and absorb the flavor of the honey they've been soaked in. They're dense yet still light, but more like little honey soaked buns rather than what one thinks of as cheesecake. I added chocolate which was definitely NOT known to the Romans, nor was sugar which is why the dessert is sweetened only with honey. I meant to add that earlier but forgot to mention it. The cheesecakes would have been excellent with orange zest, or cardamom, or cinnamon, saffron, or anything else one would want to add and any of those spices would have been authentically ancient. This is a recipe that's wide open for whatever tickles ones' fancy and can only benefit from it.

   Also eating these cheesecakes, one realizes just how accustomed to sweet with a capital S most modern palates are. What would have been just sweet enough to please one of the ancient Romans would be considered not dessert-worthy at a lot of modern tables. I'm not a huge fan of overly sweet desserts so I liked this exercise in culinary archeology.

   Coming up next, another way to do a banana, and I mean that in the nicest possible way. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Macerated Mango Sauce For Cheesecake

   Dang I like the way that sounds... macerated mango sauce. It reminds me of those rhymes when I was a kid... ya know, dirty little birdies feet. Okay, maybe it was just me. When I served the mango saffron cheesecake last week I wanted to add a sauce to top things off, and since the cheesecake was saffron mango, the choices were pretty clear.

   Now I have some fairly bad memories of cheesecake topping in my past. Granted I didn't grow up in NYC like my husband where perfect cheese cake is practically found on every street corner. I got my first taste of NY cheesecake the week before we got married when my husbands' Aunt Clara flew out from New York with an S & S Cheesecake on her lap.

Those were the days when you could still do that kind of stuff without a full cavity search ensuing. The idea of flying 5 hours with a cheesecake in one's lap is okay, a little strange maybe, but I took it as welcoming a Californian to a very New York family.

   So was flying cross country with a cheesecake in your lap worth it? Damn straight it was. This was one fine cheesecake. Up until that time, my cheesecake experience had been limited to stuff out of our local markets freezer, usually topped with something that seemed like cherry pie filling right out of the can. Now that I think of it, it probably was cherry pie filling out of a the can. Not exactly gourmet.

   Living in Los Angeles, I'd never really gone in search of the elusive cheesecake, but once I had one of those "Straight Outta The Bronx Beauties" I wanted more! I quickly discovered that I could get my S & S fix locally in LA at the Palm Restaurant. And that's how it went. For years, cheesecake was something special that I ordered out, not something I would ever make myself.

   Then a couple of years ago I started experimenting with cheesecake making. It wasn't as difficult as it seemed. One one occasion I actually made my own cheese for cheesecake. I started trying to make different sorts of cheesecakes. I made a Sicilian Cheesecake, an Indian cheesecake, and finally last week I tried my friend Sanjana's Lemon and Saffron Cheesecake only I made mine with mango.

The cheesecake turned out great, but what to put on top? I decided I needed to make a mango sauce, and I needed to make it simply and fast. I had my mango, and I had a bottle of Mango White Balsamic Viinegar from Sonoma Harvest.

Mango Dessert Sauce

Here's What You Need:

1 mango peeled and finely chopped, or 1 bag of frozen chopped mango
2 tsp of Mango White Balsamic Vinegar
A blender

Here's What to do:

Put the mango pieces in the blender and  puree them. Leave the mixture a bit chunky.
Pour the mango puree into a bowl and add 2 tsp of Mango White Balsamic Vinegar. I use Sonoma Harvest.
Mix everything together and drizzle it over the cheesecake slices.

   This quick sauce worked. It worked with frozen mango too, I can tell you that, since I had run out of ripe mangos and had to use a bag of frozen I'd picked up at Whole Foods.This sauce worked so well, that the next day we grilled some chicken and served the leftover sauce as a relish. It worked again.

   So there it is, a  sauce that can be used for dessert, with grilled meat or fish (I'm looking at you salmon) and at no time does one have to open a can of pie filling.
 Coming up next , flame roasted eggplant meets buttermilk. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Say Cheeeeesecake. Mango, Saffron, Gluten Free, Eggless, Cheesecake

 
   We had a Sunday luncheon at our house last weekend. It was one of those "hot, summer's gone and autumn's here but you'd never know it" sort of Sonoma Sundays. The kind of weather we have up here around this time of year. It's good for the grapes. Sunday lunches are thing I started doing about a year ago in an experiment in bringing my VL (virtual life) in sync with my RL (real life). It's always nice to know that the people one talks to in one's head actually exist. Just so it doesn't turn into some Lifetime Movie MySpace Tori Spelling vehicle from the 90's  crossed with a Luis Bunuel nightmare party from hell, these are not just random Tweeters we invite, but people I've been reading and tweeting to for quite a while.

   I've had three of these luncheons so far, and I'm planning to do more. It's fun getting people together who don't know one another but might have one thing or another in common. Of course one thing I always check before any of this stuff is food dislikes and allergies, That's one thing about serving Indian food to people who are not familiar with it. I don't want to put a big steaming plate in front of someone  with a lot of stuff that they either hate or will break out or worse after eating. This last weekend I had one guest who was a vegetarian who also includes fish in his diet, and another who has a gluten allergy. The meal was easy to plan since Indian food is a pretty great diet for gluten free people, and as for vegetarian dishes, it's no problem at all since many Indians eat a vegetarian diet. The problem for me was as usual, dessert.

   Part of the dessert issue for me was wanting to make something I'd not made before. and making sure that that something would be gluten free and also contain no gelatin (made from meat). I thought a nice cheesecake would go well with the rest of the menu I had planned but a lot of the recipes I had, contained gelatine or flour. Then I remembered my friend Sanjana who writes over at K.O. Rasoi. She's a master if Indian vegetarian cuisine and always manages to whip up the most amazing desserts with believe it or not, eggless baking. I thought that if anyone out there had a recipe that would fit the dietary needs of my guests Sanjana would. Boy howdy was I right! I clicked over and there it was, a magnificent cheesecake, no eggs, no gluten, no problem.

   Even though I'd never tried eggless cheesecake baking before, I was in. I was destined to make this cake. I loved the idea of a saffron cheesecake and decided to give it my own twist and add mango to the batter, and serve it with a macerated mango topping. This cheese cake needs to cool in the fridge for at least 8 to 10 hours before serving so it's a great make-ahead dessert. As a matter of fact it's a must make ahead dessert.

Mango Saffron Gluten Free Cheesecake

Here's What You Need:

250 grams of gluten free graham crackers or ginger snaps, finely crushed
3 Tbs of unsalted butter
500 grams of ricotta cheese
500 grams of softened cream cheese
1 and 1/2 cups of sugar
1 and 1/3 cups of whipping cream
1 Tbs cornstarch
1 and 1/2 tsp of vanilla
1 small mango peeled and finely chopped
1/4 tsp of  toasted saffron
A 10 inch spring form pan
butter for greasing the pan

Here's What To Do:

Preheat the oven to 320 degrees.
Toast 1/4 tsp of saffron by placing it in a small microwave safe dish and heating it for about 15 seconds.

You want to get the saffron dried so that it can be easily crumbled. Depending on your microwave, it may take a few seconds more or less. I usually toast my saffron in a cast iron pan and this was the first time I'd tried this method. It worked very well and was much faster.

Crumble the dried saffron and set it aside for later.
Grease the spring form pan bottom and sides with butter and set aside.
Grind the graham crackers or cookies in a food processor or blender until they are fine crumbs.

Mix the crumbs together with 3 Tbs of melted butter.
Press the butter crumb mixture firmly into the bottom of the pan.

Cover the crumb mixture with plastic wrap and set it int the fridge to chill for at least an hour.

Making the filling:

In a large bowl gently mix together the ricotta, cream cheese, whipping cream, vanilla, and corn starch.
You DO NOT want to over mix this.

I used my hand beater just to be on the safe side, and even then I was worried. How much is too much? The story of my life.
Fold the finely chopped mango and the crumbled saffron into the batter.

Pour the batter on top of the crumb crust in the spring form pan and pop it into the oven on the middle rack.
Place a  pan of water beneath the cheesecake to prevent it from cracking while cooking.

Bake for 1 and 1/2 hours or until the cheese cake starts to turn golden and firm up.

   This was what had me worried. How the hell was this thing going to shape up without eggs or gelatin....or anything? Since the cheesecake has be baked the day before serving, I was making mental battle plans of alternate desserts to save my ass. I envisioned unmolding it, unleashing a sea of curdled ricotta and mango bits floating across the dining room table right into our guest's laps.

   "That's what you get for going to a strangers' house for a meal", I thought.

   It took a while but it finally did firm up and was a nice light golden color with little flecks of saffron. "What the hell had happened in there?" I wondered.

Let the cake cool to room temperature and then refrigerate it for at least 8 to ten hours.
Unmold it and serve it up.

   This cheesecake was light, delicious, not too sweet. It was a perfect dessert . As to how it managed to come together there in the oven and later in the fridge I have no idea. It's some sort of eggless magic I suppose. Or chemistry. Or something.

 The meal was a success, connections were made and no one wound up with an axe in their head. Another hostessing triumph. I'm going to be doing another of these lunches before the Holidays really set in. It's great to bring the virtual into the real every once in a while and vice versa. Coming up next a fast mango topping for cheesecake, or ice cream or whatever your heart desires. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

The Easiest Cheesecake Ever! No Kidding.

    I want to get one thing clear at the start. I'm not a big baker of cheesecakes. I baked my very first cheesecake back in November as part of Marx Foods Iron Foodie Competition. That was a Chenna Cheesecake. I made the cheesecake myself. It was very  delicious but also very involved. So cheesecake, as much as I enjoyed it, became something that involved me making my very own cheese and taking quite a lot of time. To me it became something like mounting the Macys' Thanksgiving Day parade. Great, but a once a year event. Then I made a discovery. Sicilian Cheesecake.
   So where has Sicillian Cheesecake been all my life? Yeah, I was wondering too. One minute I was watching streaming video of Will and Kate's wedding...(yeah, I did...So?!) The next, I was trawling the Internet looking for cheesecake recipes. That's when I ran across the Sicilian Cheesecake recipe. All it needed was ricotta cheese, eggs and a lot of sugar and spices and a spring form pan. I had all of those things plus a bunch of low and non-fat ricotta cheese in the fridge (there was a sale, how could I not?!) and I needed to do something with it before its' due date came up.
   But of course Alan and I couldn't just eat this whole cheesecake ourselves. We needed an excuse. Turns out our friend Chip's wife was out of town for the weekend and his dog Tucker was recovering from tonsillitis. Boom! We had our excuse! Cheesecake party! So if you've got a few simple things in the fridge, in an hour and a half or so you can be tucking into an amazing cheesecake.

Sicillian Cheesecake

Here's what to do:
Preheat an oven to 300 degrees.
Grease and flour a 9 inch spring form pan.
In a large bowl whip together 2 lbs (Two 15 oz cartons) of low or fat-free ricotta cheese.
Mix it with an electric beater until it's nice and smooth.
MIx in 2/3 cup of sugar

When that's nice and smooth add in 1/3 cup of flour.
 Blend in 6 eggs 1 egg at a time
 2 Tsp of vanilla
 2 tsp of lemon zest
 1/4 tsp of cinnamon
 1/8 tsp of salt.
When the batter is nice and smooth pour it into the spring form pan and pop it into the oven on a middle rack.
 Tip: To prevent the cheesecake's surface from cracking, place a bowl of hot water on the rack under the cake.
  Bake it for about 1 and 1/4 hours to 1 and 1/2 hours. When the cheesecake is firm and a knife stuck into the center comes out clean, it's done.
  Put the cheesecake on a cooling rack and when it's cool, unmold  it from the spring form pan, cover it and chill it in the fridge...or you could eat it right then and there!

  That's it. It's that simple! Serve it with fresh fruit. I whipped up some fresh, local, organic strawberries with 2 Tbs of organic maple vinegar and a pinch of stevia. It cheered Chip right up! Tucker felt better too.
  I was supposed to compete in a burger cooking contest Sunday afternoon. I had big plans for making kheema and baking naan bread and making a tomato chutney, but by the end of the week's work, I was exhausted and reluctantly bowed out. I needed some rest. And as for Patsy the Siberian Husky, she was too lazy to care.

Coming up next more fun with vegetables and a vegan cake! Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

My Marx Foods's Iron Foodie 2010 Entry, My Twist On Chenna Poda, Indian Cheesecake.

                                       

   When I was told that I was to be one of 25 Iron Foodies, I was excited. I ran around telling my friends and family. I was gonna be an Iron Foodie. I was gonna get a mystery box from Marx Foods and I was going to create a signature dish from whatever they sent me. Wow! All those months of watching Chopped wouldn't be going to waste. I'd told Alan I was working when I was watching, now I wouldn't be a liar. It was all for a good cause. I'd finally get my chance. Then I got scared. What the hell was I going to do?? What had I gotten into? What was going to be in the box? The rules stated that I had to use 3 of the 8 ingredients included. I couldn't wait to see what I'd been sent.
    The box arrived right on schedule.

  I ripped it open.

   There it all was, Tellicherry Peppercorns, Maple Sugar, Dulse Seaweed, Fennel Pollen, Smoked Sea Salt, Aji Panca Peruvian Chiles, Bourbon Vanilla Beans, Dried Porcini Mushrooms. There was my dilemma, what to do? What to make? Hot or cold, sweet or savory, mild or spicy?  A lot of possibilities flashed through my head but I couldn't settle on any one thing. I knew I had to get moving on whatever it was. I was going to cook and I gave myself until Thanksgiving to make up my mind. I read. I did research. I decided that I'd go with the sweet.
   I wanted to make it an Indian sweet but one that I'd never fixed before. Then I had it. Cheesecake. And not just any cheesecake, but the only cheesecake made in India, Chenna Poda from the state of Odisha. It turns out that cheesecake originated there about 50 years ago when a baker left some cottage cheese in a partially warmed oven. The next morning bingo! Cheesecake! I also decided on cheesecake because this is the time of year when all of us are involved in a lot of dessert fixing. Cheesecake always looks great on any Holiday table.  As a matter of fact I think cheesecake looks great almost anywhere! I also wanted to create a recipe that would be a bridge between the type of cooking I do most of the time (Indian) and a very familiar dessert for most people.
   I decided to make some chenna cheese for the filling. Of course I had to put my own spin on this cheesecake, so I thought I'd make it with a chocolate, chili, graham cracker crust with the aji panca chilis I'd been sent. I'd use the bourbon vanilla beans from the box to flavor it and the maple sugar as a sort of brulee topping. I would caramelize. I would buy a torch! I was excited! I was going to make

Indian Cheesecake With A Chocolate Chili Graham Cracker Crust and a Brulee Top

 
   The first step involved making the Chenna Cheese. If you don't want to try making your own chenna cheese (it's pretty easy just click on the link above for directions) Ricotta cheese makes a great substitute.
  Of course I use only the most sophisticated method in my cheesemaking. Note the high tech equipment.

   Once the paneer cheese was made, it was one quick step to turn it into sweet chenna cheese. All that was needed was to add :
2 tsp of sugar
1 tsp of flour

Then knead until the chenna is soft and pliable.

Place it in a bowl along with 2 packages of cream cheese.

 

Now for The Crust.
Seed and toast 1 large Marx Foods Aji Panca Chili Pepper. Put the pieces into a spice grinder until you have a fine powder.

    In a food processor mix
1 pack of graham crackers
1 Tbs of Valhrona cocoa powder
1/4 cup of melted butter
1/2 cup of sugar
the ground chili powder

 

Press the ground-up crumb mixture into the bottom of a greased 8 inch springform pan.
Put the pan with the crust into the freezer for 30 minutes to set. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Now for The Filling.
All filling ingredients should be at room temperature.
In a large bowl beat together 2 packs of room temperature cream cheese along with 1 cup of chenna cheese and 1 cup of sugar.

Beat for about 2 minutes until it's nice and smooth.
 Blend in:
1 egg yolk
2 Tbs of flour

When that's blended, add 4 more whole eggs.

Scrape in the seeds from one Marx Foods Bourbon Vanilla beans.

Blend for another 3 minutes or so. Don't over beat.
Take the pan from the freezer, set it on a cookie sheet. Pour the batter into the pan.

Put the cheese cake in the middle of the oven. Note: To prevent cracking, place a bowl of water on the rack below the cheesecake.

 Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 250 degrees and bake for another 1 and 1/2 hours.  The cheesecake is done when it feels firm to the touch and yet the center is still a little jiggly.

Place on a cooling rack for one hour.
Okay, now here's something I learned the hard way. This cheesecake has to rest in the fridge for at least 6 hours before you can eat it. Overnight is better.
 Waiting was hard, but boy was it worth it.

 The next day unmold the cheesecake.

Now for the final touch. Before serving, sprinkle the top with Marx Foods Maple Sugar.  Ignite a culinary torch and slowly moving it over the surface of the cheesecake but not touching it... melt the maple sugar.

Or if you haven't got a culinary torch, you can always go old skool with a salamander.
Heat it on the stove till it's red hot, then hold it over the sugar till it melts.

 As soon as the sugar has set for about 5 minutes or so, have at it!

    The cake was amazing. The combo of glazed maple sugar, chilies, and vanilla bean was delicious.
In India this cheese cake doesn't have a crust. In fact it's baked more like a flan with the sugar on the bottom of the pan, batter on top and then upended for serving. Making the cake the way I did crosses it with the version of the cheesecake we're all more familiar with... plus you get to play with a blow torch!
   I want to thank the great folks at Marx Foods and Foodie Blogroll for giving me a chance to compete in the Iron Foodie 2010 competition. I hope when voting opens on the 7th you'll give me a vote. I loved my box of goodies and can't wait to do more experimenting with the ingredients I haven't used yet.