Karenza M. of Cornwall's photostream  

Dear Mum,

Second attempt at JO's cheesecake...turned out MUCH better this time! Lovely and light with a soft smooth-almost-fresh-cream-chocolate-truffle-texture...YUM-MEE. Popped the bowl in the freezer for five mins. before whipping the cream from the fridge and had no trouble getting soft peaks this time. Also used the electric mixer briefly after folding in half of the cream, just to get rid of any cream cheese lumpies. Worked well, the final mix was velvety...

Only one teeny hiccup...realised at the last minute that had no oats in the house, so had to drive over to a friends house to borrow some! And had remembered the lemon, but not the orange, so had to improvise and add grapefruit zest with the lemon zest and juice - oops!

But everyone loved it...I was sooooooo happy. :-)

And solved the 8km journey in the hot sun by leaving the cheesecake in the baking tin, in the freezer, for half an hour before leaving the house. It travelled well in the shade (between my feet) with a tea towel underneath it and a plate covering it, held down with a frozen ice brick. Also opted for taking the raspberry sauce in a separate pot...better that way, everyone serves as much or as little as they like. And it's the best moment for me...the sauce pouring in anticipation of the eating... :-)

She appeared at the door with "some pre-Christmas joy"...all hand-made in her kitchen...awwwwwww...what a wonderful surprise...absolutely made my day... :-)

About nine different varieties, including lebkuchen, spitzbuben, zimtsterne, haferflockenplatzchen, spritzgebach, springerle, butterbrotchen...and one Chilean biscuit, kartoffelscheiben...wow...

...biscuits and fudge for the school Weihnachtsbasar...