The last few weekends have been jam packed, mainly with food associated work, not like I am complaining though. Bank holiday weekend as I am sure you have seen by now, I was busy in Alexandra Palace London, for the penultimate Foodies Festival of the year. I sacrificed spending time with my mother and the family on her birthday to attend Foodies.. it was a hard call as you can imagine! However, I promised to make it up to her by baking a cake, so a fair compromise wouldn’t you say?
As I have said before baking for family, especially my mum can be tricky. Unless it is lemon or chocolate you are normally facing a losing battle. It can never be too adventurous at all, her requirements generally go as followed:
please no dairy, at least none that I can taste
no nuts
no bizarre textures or flavours… so normally rules out everything I feel like making or want to experiment with!
I came home from the last day at Foodies on the bank holiday Monday, driving straight from London back home, dropping my bags and jumping in the kitchen. It was already the evening but I had promised a cake, so I had to deliver. With going back to work Tuesday morning, it was going to be a busy evening forsure!
My idea was to change up the flavours on a cake I had previously baked, a raspberry cheesecake. I decided well, mum likes lemon? Be it lemon meringue pie, lemon drizzle or anything else, so let’s go for lemon cheesecake!! I used a ginger base just to add another element of flavour to complement the lemon. A tangy delight!
The filling however rather than the traditional, uses jelly in with the mix. It gives it a light, fluffy, mousse like texture. I am not a fan of cheesecake but after having this when I first made it, I was a convert!
Luckily she liked it, as did everyone who had some… it was a bit of a rush job for my standards, more time to chill before cutting the first slice was what I wanted, but we all wanted cake!! The rest of the nights were a triumph though! 😊
I continued the birthday celebrations the tuesday night, with another compromise... Skipping the brand new FIRST episode of #GBBO for cocktails... A hard call ;-) haha