Recipe: Mango and Passionfruit cheesecake.

Now as a self-confident cheesecake-baker, which means 3 successful cakes in a row, I started to experiment. Sometimes I read the “Cheesecake Factory`s” menu as in inspiration, trying to not to look at the pictures as my heart would break. Cheesecakes are pretty much good with anything of course fruit wise, and when you know what you are doing, they are also rewarding and easy! Baking is fun, and the results are getting better and better with some practice. So when I had a few mangoes in my fridge, I thought why not? Mango cheesecake here I come!

But I thought mangoes by themself are not enough, I wanted something special, and also something sour. When in my cocktail cabinet I found an old bottle of Monin passionfruit cocktail base. The 2 fruits are just great together. If you don’t have any passionfruit, you could also try some blackberry or cranberry cordial, they work good as well!

ingredients

• 2 hand-full of plain small biscuits broken into small pieces
• 150g of melted butter
• 600g of PHILADELPHIA creme cheese:)
• 2 eggs
• 2 ripe mangoes
  
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• vanilla extract
• 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp of sour creme
• cold whipcreme
• 1 fresh passionfruit or passionfruit pulp..like Monin.

Preheat the oven for 18cC. Mix the melted butter with the biscuit, 2 tbsp of sugar, vanilla, and juice of half a lemon in a bowl. Mix it well together, until it becomes soft. Lay it down equally on your cake base and put it in the oven for about 10 minutes.

In a bowl mix the creme cheese, with the sugar, and sour creme. Add the egg yolks 1 at a time, mix it well. Whip the egg whites until it becomes a nice white foam, and fold it in the creme cheese mix carefully with a plastic spatula. Add some vanilla extract, the other half of the lemon juice and the whipped creme.

Take the biscuit base out of the oven. Lay down the fruits, and pour over the cheese mix. Bake for about 20 minutes. Let it set and cool before u take it out of the base. Serve cold!

Mango and passionfruit cheesecake

Recipe- Plum exploison aka the sweet gnocchi

http://www.bctree.com

It`s plum season, which means they are cheap and they are everywhere. So how could we use them? Jam of course, cakes of course, maybe asian plum sauce? Well, why not. But, have you ever tried plum dumplings? Maybe yes maybe not, but even if you know them, you should always get back for more.

As it says in the title its a sweet gnocchi. Well, almost, the dough is very similar for the italian potato dumplings, also  it`s slightly bigger as soon as you stuff it with the dumplings. But for all it is very tasty, addictive and filling! My record is 4 dumplings, my father’s is 7..and we are talking about a man who can easily finish a pork hock by himself. So, it can be a dessert, or just a second after a nice soup. This hungarian dish will surely make your guests or family pleased!

Ingredients

• 1 kg potatoes
• 1kg flour
• 1 egg
• 1 spoon of oil
• pinch of salt
• 1 kg of plums
• cinnamon
• sugar
• 15gr of butter
• breadcrumbs

Cook the potatoes with the skin on, when cooked, remove skin, and mash. leave them to cool a little bit. mixing it too early when its still hot wont do any good with your dough.  When luke warm mix in the flour, the egg, the oil, the salt and  the butter and work in well together.  Roll it out on a clean surface about 1cm thick. Wash, cut in half and deseed the plums. Mix sugar with cinnamon.

Cut equal size of cubes from the rolled out dough, place the plum in the middle with some sugar mix, and roll them together forming a small ball out of them. The dough will double it’s size while cooking.. Place the dumpling into hot boiling water untill cooked. When ready, roll them into toasted  breadcrumbs! Enjoy! ps. sprinkle some extra sugar on top when serving!

Hungarian Plum dumpling- szilvasgomboc

Budapest: Sugar! review

Sugar! Shop Paulay Ede street 48 District VI, Budapest

If you are hungarian or live in Hungary you must have read about this place in some fashion magazine, or design page, or watched a program on the local culinary channel. Sugar! was a big hit among Budapest cake lovers a few years ago.  Even when it was hidden a IV. district residential area, which was hard to reach by public transport. Children, and adults went crazy when they saw the places design with M&M`s filled tables and colourful pies, heart-shaped mousse and even more magical wedding and birthday cakes. Even Sarah Jessica Parker received a custom-made Sex and the City gift from them. Oh and theres the shop, from wasabi tasting lip gloss to fluffy telephones and tones of jelly belly its a crowd pleaser. No wonder they were going to open a new shop somewhere in the city center, because nobody understood why it has to be so far-far away? The reason for its first location was the actual Hortvath cake shop and patisserie, which had a very nice name among the districts residents, and the owner and founder of sugar is a lucky member of this sweet loving family.

So, now in the heart of Budapest, on Paulay E. street just a few minutes away from the Opera House, or Octogon or Andrassy street, for a bout a year now, we can enjoy the Sugar! cakes.  So if you visiting, moving, studying in this beautiful city and you like your cakes, you should really check it out! Of course there are some things ou should know before you enter and you order.

Just as everything, Sugar! isn’t too perfect as well. My problem is sometimes that in the cakes they put more effort on the design then on the actual taste. So, this why please don`t buy cupcakes there..those are horrible! But, I do recommend the pies and the cheesecakes, pretty much all of them! especially the sour-cherry and the deluxe pie, or the strawberry and banana..or you know..any of them!:) If you are in for something special try any of the milk rice combinations..my favourite is the vanilla based rice with sour strawberry topping! Most of the mousse look good, but we found them tasteless..such like the chocolate-chilli and the lavender mousse were good looking but empty inside..like a bad date! If you around maybe you can still taste some from their Tokyo collection monsters. They look so cute you don’t even want to eat them, but the treat you’ll find inside is really worth to destroy some of these blue or red japanese monsters. Of course there are shakes and lemonades, and yes, they are all fabulous. My problems with the lemonades are that there’s a bit too many things in them and not enough liquid.. so you can’t really enjoy it, not to mention when the fruit gets sucked in the straw and you can’t drink from the glass as you get hit in the face by falling mints and ice. So yes there are ways I can criticise Sugar! but there is a reason I go back from time to time. It`s good, it`s fun and tasty!