The story of Me & Baking and Why we aren't friends.

You all know I like to cook.

A LOT.

But Baking & I have never really been friends.

I think it is the exacting nature of baking that puts me off.

The fact that when they say 1/2 a cup they REALLY mean HALF a cup!

I am kind of well known for being a spontaneous kind of girl.

A bit of a rule breaker.

Not in a bad way...

I just have never really liked being told what to do.

Coupled with the fact that I don't really have much of a sweet tooth it meant that Baking and me were never really going to hit it off.

Baking was the girl in the schoolyard who always had her pigtails all perfect with the centre part RIGHT smack bang in the middle of her head.  Who always arrived for photo day with her dress all ironed with perfect seams & matching ribbons.

Me.....well I was one with the socks all baggy around my ankles and with Pippi Longstocking plaits (she was my HERO dontcha know...I WAS her!) all wayward and bent skywards with pipe-cleaners to keep them flipped up & mismatching ribbons.  I arrived for photo day with stains & creases on my dress. And I wore red patent clogs instead of school shoes.

My original & very LOVED copy of my HERO

You get my drift?

But the other day on Instagram Flowerpress was chatting about a cake that really took my fancy.
And then my photo on Instagram had lots of requests to blog the recipe too.

We were in the midst of one of those weeks last week where illness visits and takes over.

I sometimes get this weird urge to bake when that happens.

If I listened to my inner psychologist I would totes read that behaviour as me grabbing at a little control where all else feels...well SOOOO outta control.

Does that happen to you?

Do you grab at things to control when all else feels like it is spiralling?

BAKED LEMON & LIME BUTTER CHEESECAKE:
The original recipe is from here.
I get so frustrated when I see the ingredient lists of recipes are not in Metric.
Are you the same? Luckily there is an app for that!
Sheesh when will we all get on the Metric scale? So MUCH easier.
Anyway I made a few minor changes and I will write the recipe in Metric for all us metric fans ok!
My Hubby is a BIG fan of a baked cheesecake so I thought I would get all 'Housewife of the Year 1954' and bake him a cake.  
It might of even made up for the house being super messy. Just maybe.
And despite me NOT being a big fan of sweets I must say this was DELICIOUS.
It has a butter cake bottom & edge which goes all chewy and sugary with the lovely soft cheesecakey middle hidden in the middle. AMAZING.
You make the 2 parts separately and pour the cheesecake top over the butter cake bottom.
I made the butter cake part first & poured it into the springform tin and then made the cheesecake part.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
for the butter cake part

• 2/3 cup plain Organic flour
• 1/3 cup Caster sugar
• 2 tspn baking powder
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 2 organic eggs
• juice of 1 lemon (and the zest)
• juice of 1 lime (and zest) (if you only have lemons just substitute this here)
• seeds from half a Vanilla bean (substitute 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla extract)

for the cheesecake part

• 250g cream cheese
• 3tblspn butter
• 1 organic egg
• the seeds form the other half of the vanilla pod (or 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla extract)
• zest of a lemon
• juice of half a lemon
• 1/2 cup of Icing sugar (and a little extra for dusting)

METHOD:
Heat oven to 160C.
Grease & line a 20 cm springform tin.

In a mixer combine the dry ingredients and then add all wet. Mix well.
Pour into the springform tin.

Now to make the cheesecake part (I used the same mixing bowl).

Beat the cream cheese for about 3 minutes until it is light and creamy.
Add the icing sugar and continue to beat for 2-3 minutes.
Add the egg, butter, vanilla seeds & lemon juice & zest.
Mix until combined and stop.

Now carefully add the cheesecake batter on top of the butter cake batter being sure to leave an edge of about 5cm.

This allows the butter cake to rise around the edges and swallow the cheesecake inside giving the chewy delicious edge.

Place into the oven and bake for about 45-50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean near the edge of the cake.
Allow to cool in the tin for ten minute before carefully removing the springform tin & allowing to cool on a wire rack.

Let cool for an hour before dusting with Icing sugar.

(The original recipe suggests serving cold from the refrigerator but I prefer it to be room temperature. The flavours are better.)

And the listening pleasure today is from one of my FAVE Sassy ladies- Sarah Vaughan...her nickname was 'SASSY'. Do you LOVE Sarah Vaughan?
Listen to how gorgeous she is at the start of the video when she speaks a little Swedish. Bless her.....