macadamia – Sweet Tooth Experiments

Butterscotch Macadamia and White Chocolate Cheesecake recipe

For a while now I have been trying to make a delicious dessert with a bottle of butterscotch snapps that I have left over from a cocktail night. I figured I have never baked with butterscotch before and was really interested in experimenting and making it a hero ingredient. For flavor pairing inspiration I thought about what works well with butterscotch sauce (hmmm butterscotch sauce). Vanilla and white chocolate seemed to have similar flavor profiles and worked well. I decided on a cheesecake as the cake type, as I’m not a fan of heaps of cream and fat I decided to use low fat ricotta and mascarpone cheese as the filling foundation. I’ve made cheesecakes with ricotta before and they have worked brilliantly. To ensure the textures were balanced I added chopped macadamias to provide some crunch, which goes perfectly with vanilla and white chocolate. The outcome was a luscious and decadent cheesecake with grown up flavors that you can eat and enjoy more guilt free that usual.

Base:

Filling:

Method:

Line a 25cm spring form cake tin with baking paper.
Place the biscuits and soften butter in a food processor and blitz until the mix resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Press mix into the bottom and sides of the lined cake tin.
Place the tin in the fridge to set.
Place the ricotta into a food processor until smooth.
Melt 40g of white chocolate and leave aside until cool to room temprature.
Transfer the ricotta into a large bowl with the mascarpone cheese, icing sugar, vanilla and butterscotch and beat using a hand whisk until just combine.
Add the melted white chocolate and whisk with the hand whisk until combine.
Finley chop up the remaining 80g white chocolate and the macadamia nuts and stir into the filling.
Pour the filling onto the base and place into the fridge for 3 hours to set.

Note: I have decorated with some extra chocolate and nuts chopped up as well as a few raspberries for decoration.

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Low Fat White Chocolate Lemongrass Salted Macadamia Cupcakes

You are correct, white chocolate and macadamia is a stock-standard flavor combo, nothing new or unusual here. And lemon, well this is also a very common baking ingredient that is sometimes paired with white chocolate. The reason these flavors are common is because they are so divine together. So if I’m creative a recipe that’s stock-standard what is going on and why even bother making up a recipe? The hero ingredient in which I have never baked with before and don’t believe I have ever even heard of being in a sweet treat before is the Lemongrass (also lemon and macadamia is a little unusual in itself but not enough for me to create a recipe off). The lemongrass provides a lovely variation to the norm lemon flavor, the salted macadamia provides a lovely crunch texture to the cupcake and the salt elevates the tone in the white chocolate making this cupcake super delicious and walks all over any lemon cupcake I have ever had! Also, the natural yoghurt and the lemon juice adds a slight sourness and bitterness that offsets the intense sweetness of the icing sugar making the icing a lovely more restrained addition.

Ingredients:

Icing:

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 200c degrees and line a 12 hole cupcake tin with patty cases.
Sieve the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar in a bowl and stir to combine.
Chop the white chocolate and macadamia into small pieces and place into the flour mix, stir.
Grate the lemongrass and stir into the flour mix.
Melt the butter in a bowl in the microwave and add the buttermilk, puree and eggs. Whisk with a hand whisk until well combined.
Pour the milk mix into the flour mix and using a hand whisk beat until just combine.
Pour the batter into the patty cases and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until and skewer in the center comes out clean.
Place the cupcakes onto a cooling rack until cool.
Meanwhile to make the icing beat the ingredients until well combined.
Using a spatula spread over the cupcake evenly.
Grate extra white chocolate, macadamia and lemon zest over the icing.

Step 9

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