Bobbilicious: My Baileys and Espresso Cheesecake

My Baileys and Espresso Cheesecake

I started to bake cheesecakes because I love them. I love how rich and decadent they can be, or how light and clean and pleasing to your palette but best of all how easy they are to make.

Now all that being said, the beauty of baking and cooking is adding your little own je ne sais quoi to a tried and tested recipe to make it your own. Here I have for you my Baileys cheesecake. I made it for a friend of mine for her Mom for Mother's Day and it was a hit. It's easy, decadent and delightful...Enjoy!!! And remmember to add your own twist to this if you wish.

Ingredients

For the base
8 oz. Graham cracker crumbs (Digestive biscuits work like a charm)
2 tbsp. of butter

For the batter
27ozs. of room temeperature cream cheese (3 8ozs packs and a lil more)
7ozs. of granulated sugar
1oz. corn starch or flour (whichever you have, it doesn't make a difference really)
2tsps vanilla extract ( I prefer extract to essence anyday, but use what you have)
4 eggs at room temperature (medium - large)
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
2 ozs. heavy whipping cream
4-6oz*. Baileys Irish Cream (*this variant is really to your tastebuds)
1 tbsp espresso powder

Here we go

Mix the Baileys Irish Cream and heavy mixing cream and the espresso powder until all combined and refrigerate.

Grease and flour an 8" baking pan and pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees F. I like using springform pans for cheesecakes because the sides of the tin is so easy to remove but a regular baking pan will work just fine...remember, always keep it simple.

Mash your biscuits in a sealed plastic bad to avoid getting crumbs all over the place. Make sure you have good, smoothe, even crumbs. I use a rolling pin to get this done. Pour your crumbs into a bowl. In the microwave melt the butter and pour the melted butter over the crumbs and mix evenly.

Pack this crumb and butter mixture evenly into the base of your baking tin. Make sure you get your crumbs evenly to the sides as well. Put this into the oven and bake for approximately 12- 15 mins. Take the baking tin out of the oven and cool on a wire rack. Easy peasy! Now reduce the oven temperature to 300 degrees F.

We always read in recipes to use your ingrediets at room temperature and that's because you get your ingredients to incorporate and mix better.

In a mixing bowl cream the cream cheese and the sugar until creamy. Scrape the sides regularly to get all the sugar and cream cheese into your mix. There must be no lumps of cream cheese in this batter.

Add the eggs one at a time making sure that each is fully mixed into the batter before adding another. Scrape the sides of your bowl after every egg you add. When all the eggs have been added, add the vanilla extract to your batter. Next to the mix is the corn strarch or flour. My advice is to sift the corn starch or flour into the batter. If your mixing blades are getting in the way you can remove it for this step.

Here comes the fun part. To your batter add the refigerated mixture of Baileys, cream and the espresso. Mix until fully incorporated scraping the sides regularly. Pour the batter over the crumb base in your baking tin. You're ready to bake.

A little Bobbi tip! Bake your cheesecakes in a water bath. Put the baking tin in a dish/ tray ensure you have space around your cake tin. Pour water til about half-way up the side of your baking tin. Place in the oven and bake for 90minutes.

Let your cake cool on a wire rack 'til it is at room temperature. If you've used a springform pan, you can now remove the side and refrigerate for no less than 3 hours. If you used a regular baking tin, once your cake is cooled fully, put in in the refrigerator to set fully BEFORE you remove the cake.

Voila!!!!!

Baileys and Espresso Cheesecake

And now for the really fun part... the decorating....

Ingredients

1/2 pint heavy whipping cream chilled

2 ozs. powdered sugar, confectioner's sugar, icing sugar... all the same thing, so use whichever you have

1tsp vanilla extract

1 cup toasted, sliced almonds

chocolate pirouettes, sprinkles, whatever you want. Remember keep it simple

Ingredients for the job ahead

Making the Chantilly cream may be the one thing you will really have to pay attention to, I mean, keep a keen eye on it. Chill the metal mixing bowl and the whisk before you start this process.

In your chilled mixing bowl, whisk the heavy whipping cream until thickened. When you see the cream thickening, stop the mixer and add the powdered sugar and the extract and whisk at highest speed until stiff peaks form. DO NOT OVER WHISK...