Bank Holiday Weekend I ~ Jasmine & Lychee Cheesecake

Photo taken by Sei-Him Cheong

It was Bank Holiday weekend last week, so I decided to go home.

My mother has complaint she hasn't seen me for a while so I headed back to Basildon.

It was a very busy weekend.

I baked, went shopping, played with the dogs, had Dim-Sum with my sisters & watched a movie with my brother.

I spent most of the times in baking cakes & cookies for my family.

Also, my brother took all the photographs for me, he's much skilful, as seen from those photographs.

As I'm still tidying up the recipe & photos, I'll slowly post them on my blog.

Photo taken by Sei-Him Cheong

The first one I made was jasmine & lychee cheesecake.

This was the combination I always wanted to try but I waited until I got the silicone moulds I bought from ebay.

I bought 3 different silicone moulds: pyramid, hemisphere & rose.

Back to the cake, I've never used jasmine in dessert before, but it turned out great.

The subtle & floral jasmine with a refreshing sense of lychee.

Recipe (make 6 of 3'' x 3'' pyramids):

Almond cake base:

1 egg

24g sugar

10g plain flour

20g ground almond

8g sunflower oil

Preheat oven to 180'C then grease a 6'' x 9'' baking pan.

Whisk egg & sugar until fluffy & pale.

Fold in the flour, ground almond & finally the oil.

Pour into the prepared pan & bake for 10 - 15 min.

Cool on a wired rack.

Cut into 6 pieces of 3" x 3" square cake bases.

Lychee jelly:

50g canned lychee

50g syrup of canned lychee

2g gelatine

Blend lychees into puree then mix with the syrup.

Boil the syrup, add gelatine & stir to dissolve.

Divide into 6 pyramid moulds & freeze to set.

Once set, remove from the moulds for use.

Jasmine cheese mousse:

3 tbsp dried jasmine flowers

120ml hot water

100g cream cheese

140g whipping cream

45g sugar

6g gelatine

Soak the jasmine into hot water for 15 min, strain & reserve the jasmine tea; reserve some soaked jasmine flowers for decoration.

Add the gelatine to the jasmine tea, dissolve over boiling water.

In a small bowl, whisk cream cheese until smooth.

In a large bowl, whisk up the whipping cream with sugar.

Fold in the cream cheese, then the jasmine tea.

Assembling:

Fill the pyramid mould with jasmine mousse until 1/3 full, refrigerate to set.

Remove from the refrigerator, put lychee jelly in the middle, then cover with jasmine mousse.

Place a cake base on top & refrigerate to set.

After demould, decorate with jasmine flower or as you like.