A London cheesecake and some wonderful awards...

Ugghh. It appears to be September.

I've nothing against September per se. It is just that after a quiet August work-wise and a summer of rather lovely holidays, I now have the 'back to school blues'. Three days back and work and already I'm wondering when I can next find some time to take off...


No doubt it is a temporary blip and I'll soon be back to my usual self but at the moment I'm facing a horribly hectic September and I'm far from relishing the challenge. Luckily though, I love autumn produce so there is lots to look forward to!

In the meantime, let me tell you about this delicious cheesecake that I baked whilst up in Wales.

My first ever experience of cheesecake-making didn't turn out so well. In fact, it was rather a disaster. I was at school and required to produce one of those somewhat old-fashioned gelatine-set cheesecakes that you see rather rarely these days. Somewhere along the line I must have had a little slippage with the gelatine as the whole thing set like rubber. I could literally peel it off the biscuit base and flap it about the room without it breaking. Not a good sign. On the plus side, it looked the part and as the teachers didn't taste it, I was awarded top marks for what was a totally inedible creation.

Scarred by the experience, I have never since made a cheesecake. Until the other day. With the weather rather wild, wet and windy, I was glad that I had thought to take Nigella's 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' with me to Wales.

Nigella dubs this cheesecake 'London Cheesecake'. Being terribly patriotic she felt that if she had to include a 'New York Cheesecake', then she simply must have a London one too.

The cheesecake had the most perfect, silky texture and a lovely soured-cream topping. The secret, so suggests Nigella, is cooking it in a water bath. I thoroughly recommend it and shall be making it again and again, I am sure. I served it with some summer berries but it would be lovely with any kind of fruit. Next time, I might cook the fruit down a little and make it syrupy.

I'm not going to repeat the recipe here as I have nothing to add to Nigella's excellent and clear instructions. You can find them on her website here.

The only tricky part is wrapping the cake tin in a double layer of foil to ensure that no water seeps in.



Before heading to bed, I simply must apologise to Margaret at Kitchen Delights and Julia at A Slice of Cherry Pie. Both of them were kind enough to award me with some lovely blogging prizes a while back and amongst the holiday season I've only just got around to mentioning them. Thank you so much ladies for these lovely awards, they mean a huge amount and really made my day! In fact, just thinking about them again has lifted me out of my September gloom and made me feel able to face the week ahead at work!

With so many blogs out there, it is hard to pick just a few to award these prizes to. I've been discovering a few more favourites recently and plan to pass these awards on over the next week or so.