You can have your cake, and eat it!

~ by Daniela

Sitting in an open-plan office has its down side, but it also has its perks. I love my team, and thankfully we all love food. The editorial team from SA Home Owner and Avo sit together, and I recently noticed that “what’s for lunch?” has become such a common, enthusiastic question, we almost greet each other with it in the morning! Lunch times are epic in our department, with home-made leftovers constantly wafting though the air. We are always eating; we try, we share, we swap, we taste, but mostly we enjoy, and we laugh a lot.

Yet, when it comes to baking, for some reason everyone seems to shy away and place the “sweet treats” responsibility on someone from the Avo team. So needless to say I found it very exciting, when last week my three Home Owner colleagues – Justine, Trisha and Rami – out of the blue, got very excited about a Granadilla & White Chocolate Cheesecake recipe they had been drooling over, and instead of passing on the recipe with “big puppy dog pleading eyes” to one of the Avo team members – as they normally do – the three of them surprised us all by arranging to meet up that Saturday for a baking and wine extravaganza. Buying the ingredients was dished out, the time was set, and I was so delighted to see them get so excited.

The cake was truly beyond delicious and the girls really tickled me pink with pride by even following my less than professional rule of: “a recipe is just a guideline – just make it up as you go along”. They added things and made it their own, proving that we all have a little chef inside us and sometimes all it takes is a little team effort, and possibly a glass of wine!

Justine from SA Home Owner puts the cherry
(or in this case, the granadilla) on top!

 Granadilla and white chocolate cheesecake

Ingredients:

Crust:

200g Tennis biscuits

100g unsalted melted butter

Filling:

200g white chocolate

250g cream cheese

5ml gelatine powder

10ml water

25ml fresh lemon juice, with some zest for extra flavour

125ml granadilla pulp

125ml condensed milk

250 ml whipping cream

Granadilla pulp to garnish top of cake with

Method:

1.      Grease dish with butter or spray with cook ’n bake.

2.      Break the biscuits and crush to form fine crumbs. Mix the crumbs with the butter and press the biscuit mixture evenly onto the base of the dish. Refrigerate while you make the filling.

3.      For the filling: break up the white chocolate, place the pieces in a bowl over a pot of simmering water and melt.

4.      In a separate bowl put the tepid water in a bowl, sprinkle the gelatine evenly on top and set aside.

5.      Combine cream cheese, granadilla pulp, condensed milk, lemon zest and lemon juice into a bowl and whisk until smooth. Add the melted chocolate and whisk again until well combined.

6.      Put the bowl containing the gelatine into the pot of simmering water. When the liquid is clear, remove the bowl from the water and set aside to cool for a minute. Whisk the melted gelatine into the other ingredients.

7.      Whip cream until it is slightly firm and very gently fold cream in with cream cheese mixture.

8.      Pour the filling onto the prepared crust, cover and refrigerate until set – approximately for 2 hours.

A little team effort!
Rami, Trisha and Justine.

Check out http://www.sahomeowner.co.za/ for some awesome inspiration for your home!