Foodporn Friday: Chocolate caramel cheesecake

Excuse the out of focus pic - lust was making my hands shake

Yup, you read that right. Chocolate. Caramel. Cheesecake. 3 of my favourite things all in one dish!

I made this on Sunday, tweaking a recipe out of one of a friend’s cookbooks and it is luscious… the kind of cheesecake that makes you hear angels singing when you bite into it. It is definitely the best cheesecake I’ve ever had! And I think I may be making this one weekly for the forseeable future (DH’d better pre-order the crane they’ll need to get my oversized butt out of the house).

P.s. the trick to a good cheesecake is to make sure the cream cheese isn’t cold when you start – leave it out to soften up first or microwave it if you need to.

Base:

• 150gr biscuits (I used tennis biscuits but next time will be wicked and crush hundreds of chocolate tiny teddy biscuits for this)
• 50gr butter

Filling:

• 1/4 cup milk/cream/evaporated milk
• 380gr caramel
• 500gr cream cheese
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 100gr melted chocolate

Topping:

• Jersey caramels (12, 25… depends on how much topping you want)
• 4tbl milk/cream

Crush biscuits and combine crumbs with melted butter. Press into a 23cm springform pan and bake at 180 degrees for 8 minutes. Allow to cool.

Combine the milk and caramel in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and cook until combined. Pour over the biscuit base.

Beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar, mixing well. Add eggs one at a time. Stir in vanilla and melted chocolate, beat until blended. Pour over caramel layer and bake for 30 minutes.

Melt jersey caramels with milk and drizzle over the top of the cheesecake.

Remove from oven and run knife around the edge of the tin to release the sides. Cool to room temperature, then cover and refrigerate for 8 hours.

Foodporn Friday: Oatmeal caramelitas

How decadent are these? They’re called Oatmeal Caramelitas (or ‘Death by Sugar Overdose’, you choose)

LatteJunkie shared the link on Facebook and I knew I just had to try them. Its not easy to find the caramels I am used to here but I found a local equivalent and they worked perfectly! The only hard part is waiting 2 hours for them to set – they smell so good that its hard to keep your hands off them for long.

Here’s the recipe, I didn’t make any changes to it: Little Birdie Secret’s Oatmeal Caramelitas

If you make them you’re going to have quite a bit of left over evaporated milk. Here’s what I plan to do with mine…

Sweetcorn Souffle

2 tins creamed corn
2 teaspoons sugar
250ml evaporated milk/cream

3/4 cup mielie meal
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
salt & pepper

Mix together and put in shallow baking dish. Bake at 180 for an hour.