I am in desperate need of a hug. I'm not afraid to say it. I've been hiding in my house for most of the last two days with some eye issues, feeling sorry for myself and waiting for my eyes to fix up. So I really needed some comfort food. One of the most comforting desserts has to be the sticky date pudding. It holds a special place in my heart. It's one of the first desserts that my brother and I learnt to make together, and we would whip up a giant portion and eat it with tons of butterscotch sauce and vanilla ice cream until we felt totally ill. It's just one of those great winter desserts that makes you happy.
Even with the un-summery weather we've had in Sydney this summer, it's still not quite chilly enough to have me craving the rich warmth of a regular sticky date pudding. Sometimes I find them a tad too heavy and sickeningly sweet, especially the butterscotch sauce. So I decided to do something in the same vein as a sticky date pudding but without the heaviness. I made these sticky date madeleines with a butterscotch dipping sauce. Check out that sexy dipping action shot. Oh yeah.
I love love love madeleines. They are fluffy, buttery clouds of shell-shaped sponge cake happiness. But I'm still a little traumatised from the week where I could not bake a decent madeleine to save my life. It was the baking equivalent of the yips. I've never been so confident about a recipe and had so many successful attempts at it, only to have it completely fail over and over again. I've always thought that a real madeleine doesn't use any chemical leavening, but that week I eventually gave up after numerous failures and used self-raising flour just so I could stop making shell-shaped pancakes. The other day I came across Gourmet Traveller's madeleine recipe and they use baking powder in the batter. I've never had a failure with a GT recipe, so why should I argue with them? I decided to give it a go, but instead of a regular lemon madeleine, I adapted it to be a brown sugar and golden syrup madeleine with chunks of dates. It smells so good while it's baking in the oven.
The one thing that the GT recipe really emphasised was the necessity for resting the batter. I've heard this plenty of times on madeleine recipes, but always ignored it since I had never done this from the very start. And I am too impatient. But I decided to give it the proper overnight resting time to see what difference it made. Ohhh what a difference. The madeleines emerged from the oven with the most GLORIOUS humps (that signature bump on the top of each madeleine, which makes you do the same kind of dance around your kitchen as when you see feet on your macarons). Glorious! So even though I'm still stuck on the idea that a madeleine shouldn't have chemical leavening in the batter, this recipe is very reliable and the madeleines turn out beautifully. And I can use it without fear of failure.
As for the butterscotch sauce, it's a pretty basic one. You can't go wrong with butterscotch sauce. I did use salted butter for mine, which helps balance it out a little so it's not sickeningly sweet. I really insist you make the sauce if you're going to make the recipe. I specifically adjusted the madeleines so they wouldn't be too sweet to eat with the sauce. Together they tastes like a miniature, lighter sticky date pudding. It's the finger food dessert equivalent of the pudding. It's pretty fantastic.
Sticky Date Madeleines with Butterscotch Sauce
(makes about 24, adapted from Gourmet Traveller's Madeleine recipe)
NOTE: This recipe needs to be started several hours ahead of time or the night before
120g (about 1 stick) butter
100g dates, pitted and finely chopped
3 eggs, at room temperature
120g (about a packed 1/2 cup) brown sugar
1 tbsp golden syrup
A pinch of salt
175g (approx 1 1/4 cups) plain flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder

For the butterscotch sauce:
1/2 cup cream
25g (about 2 tbsp) salted butter (or unsalted butter + 1/2 tsp salt)
100g (a bit less than half a cup) brown sugar
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Melt butter, either in a saucepan over low heat or zap it in the microwave for a about a minute, set aside so it cools to room temperature but stays liquid (about 2-3 mins). Whisk eggs, golden syrup, brown sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on high speed until pale, fluffy and tripled in volume (about 4-5 minutes). Sift over flour and baking powder and fold until just combined. Fold in butter mixture a little at a time until just combined. When you are about to add the last bit of butter, fold in the chopped dates until just incorporated. Cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.
Remove batter from the fridge. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and butter two 12-hole madeleine trays very well and then lightly dust with some flour. (I only have one madeleine tray so I baked one batch after another, regreasing the tray, and it worked fine). Spoon mixture into madeleine holes, filling them up about 2/3-3/4 full. Tap the tray firmly on the bench to expel any bubbles. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until golden and cooked through. Tap tray to remove madeleines.

Prepare the butterscotch dipping sauce; place cream, butter, sugar and vanilla in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until butter and sugar has melted. Increase heat to medium to bring just to the boil and then reduce back to low and simmer for about 5 minutes or until the mixture thickens. Best served warm. If you do not want to serve with a dipping sauce you can use it to glaze the madeleines.

This is one sexy cheesecake. Somehow it turned out too sexy, if that's possible. A Chocolate Chip & Cherry Cheesecake that's made with my old faithful biscuit base, a magically fluffy and addictive no-bake filling that is full of itty bitty dark chocolate bits and cherry pie filling, and then I decided to top it off with a thin layer of rich dark chocolate ganache. I think I may have gone a step too far, I kind of regret adding the that layer of chocolate ganache now, but it seemed like such a good idea at the time and it looks so pretty especially with those cherries nestled into its surface.
The cherry and chocolate chip cheesecake filling is outstandingly good. I could quite easily eat the filling on its own straight out of the bowl. I used a simple chilled cheesecake recipe base and added a cherry mixture that's similar to the cherry pie filling from my cherry pie shortbread, so it's all lusciously jam-like. I also added little nibs of dark chocolate, like the chocolate chip bits in my mint chocolate chip cake. It's fantastic to eat, like eating a cloud of cheesecake, and every now and then you get a bite of juicy cherries or a hit of bittersweet chocolate. I considered using maraschino cherries and bigger chunks of dark chocolate so it was just like Ben & Jerry's cherry garcia ice cream, but decided that it would be a waste not to use the fresh cherries that we have available at the moment. But you can use frozen cherries or maraschino ones if you prefer.
The inspiration for this rectangular-shaped cheesecake was partly from Sweetapolita's Dark Chocolate & Raspberry Buttercream Cake with Ganache Drizzle and partly from Heston Blumenthals Black Forest Cake from his 'In Search of Perfection' series. I've done so many round cheesecakes, it seemed like a good time to try something a little different. At some point I decided that I needed to use a thin layer of chocolate ganache on top, just to make it a little prettier and so I could top it off with some fresh cherries. At first I thought cheesecake filling on its own looked a little sad and messy. But the truth is, it really didn't need it and it tasted better before I put the ganache on. So I probably wouldn't recommend adding the ganache layer unless you really like the presentation and if you wanted a dessert that was a little bit more decadent and chocolatey. I personally thought the ganache made it a tad too rich. Oh well.
If the cheesecake looks a bit messy, it's because I was even more of a klutz than usual in my kitchen. While making this cheesecake I managed to knock my food processor bowl full of chocolate chip bits on the ground, snapping some of the plastic off it and sending chocolate flying in all directions. And later on I somehow managed to upend the bowl of warm chocolate ganache, in the exact same spot where I had just cleaned up all the chocolate chips. Put chocolate & I in the same room and it will always end in disaster. But it's usually worth it. Definitely worth it in this case.
Chocolate Chip Cherry Cheesecake
(serves 6-8 people, loosely based on this cherry cheesecake recipe by Nigella Lawson)
2 cups (about 200g) of crushed disgestives biscuits (or graham crackers)
1 tbsp sugar
60g (about 4 tbsp) butter, melted
150g cherries (fresh or frozen), pitted and diced
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch) + 2 tsp cold water
150g finely chopped dark chocolate, or 3/4 cup mini dark choc chips (I blitzed my chocolate in the food processor to make the pieces really tiny)
70g (about 5 tbsp) unsalted butter, softened
300g cream cheese, softened
60g (about 1/2 cup) icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
250ml thickened cream

(Very optional) chocolate ganache:
100ml pouring cream (min 35% fat pure unthickened cream)
150g dark chocolate
Fresh cherries to decorate
Note: I found that this ganache was too rich and overwhelming for the rest of the dessert, you can definitely skip it, or replace it with a layer of cherry jam or make another batch of the cherry filling above.

For the crust; preheat oven to 160°C (325°F). Grease a 10x30cm rectangular loaf tin (or a 21cm springform tin). Line the base and two long sides of the loaf tin with baking paper leaving some extra baking paper hanging over the edges, this will make it easier to lift the cheesecake out of the tin later. Mix crushed biscuits and 1 tbsp sugar together in a medium bowl. Add butter and stir until well combined. Using your hands, spread mixture out in an even layer, then use your fingertips to press crumb mixture into bottom of tin to form an even crust. Transfer to a baking sheet and bake until crust is set and golden in places, 15–20 minutes. Set crust aside until cool.
Place chopped cherries, lemon juice and 1 tbsp sugar in a small saucepan and place on medium-low heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Add the cornflour mixture to the saucepan and stir over heat until mixture starts to thicken, then set aside to cool. Prepare the cheesecake filling; Place softened butter, cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and beat on high speed with an electric mixer until smooth. With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the finely chopped chocolate and beat until it is evenly distributed. Stir cherry mixture into the mixing bowl until combined. In a separate mixing bowl, carefully beat the cream to stiff peaks (keep a close eye on this as the thickened cream is easy to overbeat). Fold cream into the rest of the mixture and then pour over the cooled crust. Chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours or overnight. Lift out of the tray using the baking paper flaps and peel away from the sides, you can run a knife under hot water and then use it to slice a thin layer of the sides to make it look neater.

If you decide to do the chocolate ganache on top, place cream in a small saucepan on medium heat until it just comes to the boil. Chop up chocolate and place in a mixing bowl and pour the hot cream over, leaving for 5 mins to let the chocolate melt. Whisk mixture together until smooth and pour a very thin layer over the top of the cheesecake. Top with fresh cherries and chill for another hour before serving.