Raspberry Cheesecake Streusel Bars

Time for another #onetinbakes recipe? Why yes, I think it just might be. It is now officially less than a month until the book is released in the US and Canada, by which point it should also be back in stock in Australia and New Zealand. To get you all excited I wanted to share one of my favourites from the book, also one of the easiest, the raspberry cheesecake streusel bars. Now, the reason I love them is partly the simplicity and then of course the finished result,who could say no to a cheesecake bar. In the recipe the streusel does double duty, it forms the crust the cheesecake rests upon and it forms the streusel topping. Double streusel, double crunch. A very good thing if you ask me. The cheesecake filling itself is very simple, a sour cream spiked affair giving a wonderful tang that goes so well with the raspberries. The recipe is also endlessly adaptable, since the release of the book a month ago I’ve seen versions with cherries, apricots, tayberries, strawberries. Basically if you’ve got some fruit, you can probably make a version of these. 

Before we get to the recipe I do need to make one confession and one correction. The recipes were developed and tested with a scale, it’s the method I find the most straightforward and it ensures accurate baking. To make the book more universal the ingredients were also listed in cups and ounces to make the book accessible to those who don’t use a scale (although I will encourage you to try, kitchen scales are very low cost and it means you don’t have to convert recipes that use grams plus most importantly it means less washing up). After the book was sent to some friends in the US an error in one element of one recipe was spotted. I have had the error corrected for future print runs but I wanted to make sure you have the correct recipe ahead of the books wide US release. The error is in the streusel recipe for these bars and it is the American measurements which are wrong. I have made the recipe many times and the gram measurements are all completely fine. Also after the error was spotted I went through the book looking for any other issues with the conversion to cups and I haven’t found any. Apologies for the error, it was done during the edit process and because I don’t work with that system of measurements on a daily basis I missed it. The recipe below is the updated corrected recipe for your enjoyment. 

If you’re in the US and want to preorder a copy you can do so from the obvious places (Amazon, Barnes and Noble) but if you want to support small business the book is also available for preorder from Omnivore Books in SF, Now Serving in LA, Book Larder in Seattle and from most independent bookstores. In Canada its available again from Amazon, Indigo Books, Mcnally Robinson, Whilst my book tour is on hold for the time being, I will also be doing a virtual tour of sorts so make sure your following me on instagram should you like to hear about these events first.

Raspberry Cheesecake Streusel Squares
From One Tin Bakes by Edd Kimber (published 2020 by Kyle Books)
Makes 16-24

Lemon-infused cheesecake bars topped with jammy raspberries would be wonderful just on their own, but I wanted to make something a little more impressive, so these are topped with oat streusel, adding great texture. While that might seem like you’re having to make another element, you actually just make a bigger batch of the base, keeping back a small amount and crumbling it over the cheesecake. I like these with a big mug of tea, cutting them into small squares for a little sweet treat, but if you prefer, you can cut them into more regular brownie-sized pieces. 

Streusel 
225g (8oz / 2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
350g (12oz / 2 3/4 cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
200g (7oz / 1 cup) caster (superfine) sugar
1⁄4 teaspoon fine sea salt
4 tablespoons rolled oats 

Cheesecake 
565g (20 oz) full-fat cream cheese, at room temperature
120ml (4fl oz / 1⁄2 cup) sour cream, at room temperature
200g (7oz/1 cup) caster (superfine) sugar 2 tablespoons cornflour (cornstarch)
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
finely grated zest of 2 lemons
2 large eggs 

For the Raspberry Filling
3 tablespoons raspberry jam
300g (10 1⁄2oz) fresh raspberries 

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F), Gas Mark 4. Lightly grease a 9x13 brownie tin, then line with a strip of parchment paper that overhangs the two long sides of the tin. Secure the paper in place with two metal clips. 

For the streusel, mix together the flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Gradually drizzle in the melted butter, stirring with a fork to combine until the mixture has formed clumps, then tip about two-thirds of the mixture into the prepared tin and spread out evenly. Use a glass to compact it into a flat layer. Dock all over with a fork and then freeze for 10 minutes. Mix the remaining streusel with the oats and refrigerate until needed. 

Bake the base for 20 minutes, or until just starting to brown, then remove and set aside. 

To make the cheesecake, place all the ingredients into a large bowl and mix together until smooth and evenly combined. Pour the cheesecake mix evenly over the base. 

For the filling, gently warm the jam in a pan until loose, then remove from the heat and mix with the raspberries, coating evenly. Dot the raspberry mixture over the cheesecake, then crumble the reserved streusel evenly over the top. 

Bake for 35–40 minutes, or until the streusel is lightly browned. 

Leave to cool in the tin for an hour, then refrigerate for at least 4 hours, before cutting into squares to serve. 

Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator for 4 days. 

Tiramisu Brownie Crinkle Cookies

How are we all doing this week? The hot weather we have welcomed this week has been both a pain and a pleasure. Pain because all I want to do is spend my time outside, out of my hot kitchen and apartment, which is of course not the right thing to do right now. Pleasure because I am lucky to have a small park next to my apartment that has remained very quiet so I have safely been able to enjoy my lunch breaks outside soaking in a little sun. I have also been very busy in the kitchen cooking up something special and I know its something you’re going to love. Why so confident? Well the original recipe these are based off are one of, if not the most, popular recipe I have ever published. Ive taken the brownie crinkle cookies, shrunk them, infused them with A LOT of coffee, and sandwiched them with a mascarpone, vanilla rich, rum laced cream. If you can’t tell, I love these so much.

The cookies are as easy to make as their bigger relatives and thankfully the filling is just as easy. All you need to do is whisk everything together until smooth. The most important thing to note is that the mascarpone is a tricky ingredient, this incredibly rich creamy Italian cheese has a tendency to want to split when whipped so it is very important that the cream and cheese are used cold straight from the fridge. This means the cream will whip up quickly before the cheese has a chance to split.

Over the last couple years since the original recipe was posted there has been a few people who’ve had issues with the recipe and whilst this has been a small handful I wanted to go over the recipe for a second to help those people succeed in the future. I have given a lot of detail in the recipe below but to double down, the timings are very important. If the chocolate and butter, once melted, are left to cool for too long the cookies can come out flat, if the chocolate mixture is too hot it can set the cookie dough too much meaning they won’t spread enough and can look dull and lacking any shine. When it comes to baking it is also very important all of the cookies are baked at the same time, otherwise as they sit at room temperature the batter will start to set and again they won’t spread and won’t have a nice shiny crust. Try and stick to the timings as closely as you can and you are sure to have the most delicious cookies going.

Tiramisu Brownie Crinkle Cookies
Makes 10 sandwich cookies

Brownie Cookies 
200g dark chocolate, 65-70% cocoa solids
125g unsalted butter, diced
20g ground coffee (ground finely for espresso)
25ml espresso (or very strong coffee)
150g caster sugar
100g light brown sugar
2 large eggs
130g plain flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp fine sea salt

Mascarpone Cream Filling
100g mascarpone, cold
165g double cream
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
65g icing sugar
2 tbsp dark rum (or marsala or brandy), optional

Temperature and timing is very important with this recipe so before you start get all the ingredients for the cookies weighed out, two large baking trays lined with parchment paper and the oven preheated to 180C (160C fan) 350F.

Place the butter into a small saucepan and over medium heat cook until browned. The butter will melt and then splutter and then foam. When it foams the milk solids will have fallen to the bottom of the pan and will be a nutty brown. Immediately pour the butter into a bowl with the ground coffee. Set aside for 10 minutes before pouring in the espresso. Pour the coffee mixture through a very fine mesh sieve into a heat proof bowl. Press on the back of the coffee grounds to extract as much of the butter as you can. 

Place the bowl with the butter over a pan of simmering water. Add the chocolate the bowl and stir occasionally until fully melted. Remove the bowl from the heat and set aside for the moment. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, or using an electric hand mixer, whisk together the eggs and sugars for exactly 5 minutes, on medium/high speed. Meanwhile mix together the dry ingredients, sieving the cocoa powder if it has lots of lumps. Once the eggs have been mixing for exactly 5 minutes pour in the chocolate mixture and mix for about 30 seconds to combine. 

Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and mix very briefly just until combined. Use your spatula to give one last mix, scraping the bottom of the bowl to make sure everything is evenly combined. Use a 2 tablespoon sized ice cream scoop to form the cookies. Make sure to leave plenty of space between each cookie as they will spread. Sprinkle each cookie with a little flaked sea salt before placing into the oven and baking for 8-9 minutes. The cookies will come out of the oven with that wonderful crinkled look and slightly domed. They will collapse a little as they cool but this helps form that perfect fudgy centre. The cookies will be very soft so allow them to cool on the baking trays for at least 20-30 minutes before removing from the tray to cool completely. 

These cookies will keep for 4-5 days but will be best within the first 3 days. 

Once the cookies are fully cooled make the filling. Simply add all of the ingredients to a mixer and whisk on low speed to break up the mascarpone a little then raise to medium speed and whisk until the mixture holds soft peaks. This whisking should take no more than 30 seconds. To get the idea texture it is imperative that the cream and mascarpone are cold, straight from the fridge. It’s also important to whisk only to the right texture. If you are going to pipe the filling its best to whisk to a slightly looser consistency, just beginning to form peaks, as it will thicken when its piped. If you’re using spoons to fill the cookies you can whisk until fully soft peaks. 

Using a piping bag fitted with a plain round tip, or a spoon, to pipe a round of cream onto half of the cookies, sandwiching together with a second cookie pressing gently together until the cream filling almost comes to the edges. 

Refrigerate the cookies for an hour to firm up the filling a little. If not serving immediately the cookies should be kept in a sealed container in the fridge and allow to come to room temperature for a few minutes before serving. 

Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookie

We’ve been in lockdown almost six weeks now and whilst its looking like restrictions might be loosened a little in the coming weeks the internets new obsession with sourdough shows no signs of abating. As more and more of you join the sourdough bandwagon there is one question that raises it head regularly, and that is how to prevent waste. Sourdough starters are hungry little beasts and they eat flour like they don’t realise its like gold dust right now. Throwing out that discarded starter really feels like a waste right now and surely there is something we can do to reduce that. 

Reducing Waste
If you’re not going to be baking with the starter more than once a week, which is normal for most people, feeding the starter daily is going to produce the most possible amount of waste. Thankfully there is a few ways we can reduce the amount of feedings the starter needs to survive. The easiest of these, and what I would suggest you do, is simply refrigerate the starter when its not in use. As you will have learnt fermentation needs a warm environment to happen, or at least happen at the speed we like to happen, and simply reducing its ambient temperature slows it down. Placing it in the fridge slows the process down enough that it doesn’t need anywhere near as many feeds. Some people advise taking the starter out for a feed once a week, some every other week and some monthly. My guideline is when you remember give the starter a feed, trying not to leave it too long between each feeds. The process to do these feeds is simple, take the starter out of the fridge and discard and feed as normal. Before you put the starter back in the fridge leave it at room temperature for a couple hours to let the fermentation get a head start and then refrigerate until you either want to bake with it or you think it needs another feed. When you want to bake with it I take out the starter and give it a couple rounds of feeds to bring it back to full strength. The other ways you can reduce feeding is reducing the temperature of water used for the feeds to slow down the fermentation, you can also keep back less than 25g of starter when you feed. Both of these methods slow down the starter meaning it will likely only need one feed a day instead of the two a healthy starter normally needs. 

Discard Recipes
The other thing you can do to prevent waste is of course use that discard in a recipe. If you think about it the starter is 50% flour and 50% water so it should be easy to use in recipes that call for flour and some sort of liquid. You can turn the discard into a whole manner of recipes, including crackers, crumpets and a whole host of simple recipes like pancakes, waffles and even banana bread muffins. When you feed the starter and scrape the starter into a separate container and pop it in the fridge until you have enough for your recipe. Dont leave it in there for longer than a few days, if you want to store it for longer some people even freeze the discard so they can bake with it later. The general rule is take the weight of the starter discard you have and divide this number by two, substituting it for an equal amount of flour and liquid in your recipe. Whilst this works easily in lots of recipes a chocolate chip cookie might not be the first thing that springs to mind but let me tell you, it may be my favourite way to use the sourdough discard. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies
If we follow the above rules for baking with sourdough discard we run into a issue straight away just looking at the ingredients. Chocolate chip cookies include flour but they don’t normally include any liquid so to use the discard we need to creative. We need to find the water in the recipe to remove. Thankfully cookies include two ingredients that contain significant water, butter and eggs. Butter in the Europe is generally around 82% fat and the remaining 18% is water. Removing that water is actually easy, all we need to do is brown it. You can tell you’ve removed the water by weighing the finished brown butter. This recipe is based on the one in my first book and it uses 225g of butter, so if we have cooked off all the water the finished butter will weigh 185g, meaning we have lost 40g of water. 40g of water loss means we can use 80g of starter reducing the flour weight called for in the recipe by 40g to match the water. To reduce the amount fo water even further we can remove the egg whites. UK size large egg whites are 40g and this recipe originally called for 2 large eggs so by simply removing the yolks we’ve removed another 80g of water weight (I used the whole egg white as the weight to keep things simple) meaning in total we can use 240g of sourdough discard in the recipe. This is great for two reasons. One, 240g is a good amount of discard (about 2.5 days worth if you’re following my recipe) and two, its enough discard to add a decent amount of flavour. In this recipe the tang from the starter goes brilliantly with the chocolate and adds a new dimension of flavour to the recipe. Talking of chocolate for these cookies I was lucky enough to have a bag of Pump St’s brilliant Jamaica 75% chocolate feves on hand, which they’ve just started selling to the public in 1kg sized bags, and which made for exceedingly good cookies.

Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 25 cookies

225g unsalted butter, diced
380g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp flaked sea salt
220g caster sugar
220g light brown sugar
3 large egg yolks
240g sourdough starter discard (100% hydration)
1 tsp vanilla extract
500g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

To make the cookies we first need to brown the butter. Don’t be tempted to skip this because this isn’t just done for flavour it also removes the water content from the butter which is being replaced by the stater, if you skip this step the resulting recipe will have a very different texture. Place the butter into a saucepan and over medium/high heat cook until the butter melts, bubbles and then foams. Keep a close eye on it as it can burn quickly, when the milk solids have browned the water will have been evaporated off so remove from the heat and set aside for 30 minutes or so, to cool slightly. Once browned you should have 185g unsalted butter left (thats if using butter with an 82% fat content). Whilst the butter is browning place the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a large bowl and whisk together to combine.

When ready to make the cookies place the butter and sugars into a large bowl and using an electric mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk for a couple minutes to combine and to break up any lumps. Add the egg yolks and whisk for 2-3 minutes on medium/high. Don’t worry if this looks separated or greasy at the moment, it will come together once we’ve added the starter. Place the bowl on your scale and measure in the required sourdough discard, adding the vanilla as well. Mix in for a few minutes or until the mixture becomes smooth and fully combined, it should look a little like a thick cake batter. Add in the flour mixture and mix in on low speed, just until everything comes together as a dough. Finally, switch to the paddle attachment and add the chocolate, mixing briefly until evenly distributed. Press a sheet of clingfilm onto the surface of the cookie dough and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before baking (my preferred time frame to bake these is between 4-24 hours). 

Note: With my regular cookie recipes I will leave the dough in the fridge for up to three days but with these remember that even though the discard may be less active than your usual starter you are adding sourdough to fresh flour so overtime the dough will ferment a little more, so the longer you leave the dough the stronger the finished flavour. 

When ready to bake preheat the oven to 180C (160C Fan) and line a couple baking trays with parchment paper. Roll the cookies into balls roughly 70g in size, placing 6 per baking tray, with plenty of space between each one as these will spread. Sprinkle the cookies with a little flaked sea salt. 

Bake in the preheated over for about 16-18 minutes or until the cookies are lightly browned around the outside. If the cookies come out a little puffy looking give the baking tray and firm tap on the counter to help them flatten a little. Allow to cool on the baking tray for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Stored in a sealed container these will keep for 4-5 days. You can also freeze these balls of cooke dough for up to a month, baking straight from frozen with just a minute or two of extra bake time. 

Lockdown Tips

This recipe makes 25 cookies which is a lot, so you can happily reduce the recipe by half (using just 1 egg yolk).

Once the dough is chilled and you’ve rolled them into balls you can freeze these for up to a month. To freeze place the balls onto a parchment lined baking tray that will fit in the freezer. Freeze the cookies until frozen solid, at this point the cookies wont stick together so you can add them to a freezer bag or Tupperware to save on space. 

For the chocolate I normally like a high quality dark chocolate but you can really use whatever you have, be that a milk or dark, bars, chips or wafers. Each one will make a slightly different cookie with different textures and tastes but they’ll all be great.

Salted Black Cocoa Sables with Caramelised White Chocolate Chunks

I feel like this post needs to start with an apology to my fellow British bakers because to make this exactly as written will be a little bit tough. Black cocoa, the elusive cocoa used to make Oreos and of course this sable cookie, is a little tough to track down here at home in Blighty Right now, in the UK, there is only one brand of black cocoa availble (over on amazon of course) and I have no idea of the quality. I am lucky to have a stash I bought from King Arthur Flour over in the US and I use it sparingly not wanting to run out anytime soon. The good news is that in this recipe the cocoa is mainly used for look so your favourite cocoa powder will also make for a wonderful cookie, just remember this recipe should you find some black cocoa and want to try a recipe that put its dramatic look to good use. 

I also realise as I am typing this that many of you may also never have heard of black cocoa powder. Simply put it’s just another version of ‘Dutched’ cocoa powder. Cocoa powder comes in two main forms, natural and dutched. Natural cocoa powder is the leftovers after cocoa mass is stripped of its cocoa butter (this form is more common in the US). Dutched cocoa powder goes through one extra step, it is washed in a solution of potassium carbonate to neutralise the acidity found in natural cocoa powder, it also happens to darken the colour of the cocoa powder and give it a deeper more roasted flavour profile (people argue whether natural or dutched has the strongest ‘chocolate’ flavour but I’m not getting into that today). Black cocoa powder goes through a more intense version of this dutching process which gives it an almost entirely black colour. Generally it isn’t seen as having the strongest chocolate flavour compared to the more common cocoa powder varieties so I use it mainly when I want a more dramatic colour, often blending it with a regular ducted cocoa powder to give the best of both worlds. 

In todays recipe I use the black cocoa to make a cookie that looks incredible and also one that gives a chocolate flavour but without overpowering the hero ingredient of this recipe, caramelised white chocolate. If you know me you know I love nothing more than a batch of this magic ingredient. By slowly roasting white chocolate you can caramelise it and add a ton of caramel notes to the chocolate. If you’ve never made it before let this recipe be the reason you finally give it a go. 

If you don’t want to track some black cocoa down this will still taste incredible with regular ducthed cocoa powder so don’t let that stop you from whipping up a batch, 

Salted Black Cocoa Sables with Caramelised White Chocolate Chunks

Makes 30-35
140g plain flour
140g wholemeal rye flour (you can replace with plain flour if you prefer)
40g black cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp flaked sea salt
220g unsalted butter, room temperature
125g caster sugar
125g light brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g caramelised white chocolate (recipe below), roughly chopped

To make the cookie dough sieve the flours, cocoa powder and baking soda into a large bowl, pushing any lumps of cocoa powder through the sieve. I avoid sieving unless necessary and this is one of those time. Cocoa powder often forms little lumps so it’s always important to sieve it unless you want little dry pockets throughout your recipe. Add the salt and whisk everything together. Place the butter and sugars into the bowl of an electric stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, and on medium speed beat tother for about 2-3 minutes just until smooth and creamy (you can do this with an electric hand mixer too if you want). We don’t want to beat lots of air into the butter we just want to make it soft enough that the flour mixture combines easily so don’t overdo it at this stage. Add the vanilla and mix briefly to combine.

Turn the mixer off and pour in the flour mixture. We don’t want to make a huge mess and have a cloud of flour and cocoa powder cover every surface in your kitchen so cover the bowl of the mixer with a kitchen towel and then gently pulse the mixer on and off just to get the flour combined a little before turning the mixer to low to mix it in properly. We want to mix in the flour just until it disappears into the butter but before the mixture forms a ball of dough, it should still look a little crumbly. Add the chunks of caramelised white chocolate and mix briefly just to distribute. Tip the dough out onto the worksurface and use your hands to briefly bring together as a uniform dough. Cut the dough into two roughly equally sized pieces and set one aside for the moment. Form each ball of dough into a log that is roughly 4-5cm thick. Roll the log of dough in parchment or clingfilm and refrigerate until firm, about 3-4 hours. Repeat with the second piece of dough. 

When ready to bake preheat the oven to 160ºC (140ºC Fan) 325ºF and line a couple baking trays with parchment paper. Unwrap one of the logs of dough and use a sharp knife to cut into slices about 1/2 an inch, just over a cm, thick. Place them onto the prepared baking trays leaving just a little space between. The cookies will spread but not significantly. Sprinkle each with a little extra flaked sea salt, unless you are one of those people that have sent me angry emails about your hatred of salt being sprinkled onto cookies you guys can leave it off and stop emailing me. Bake in the preheated oven for 14 minutes. The cookies wont look done, they’ll be incredibly dark so you cant use visual clues and if you press them they’ll feel too soft but trust the process, as the cookies cool they crisp up leaving you with a wonderful sable texture. Sable is French for sand and these cookies should have a slightly crumbly, almost shortbread like texture. 

Kept in a sealed container these cookies will keep for about 4-5 days.

Caramelised White Chocolate

300g white chocolate, minimum 30% cocoa butter content

To make the caramelised white chocolate simple roughly chop the chocolate and add to rimmed baking tray. I use an American style quarter sheet pan which is the same size as a regular 9x13 brownie pan so if you own one of those you can also use that. Place the baking tray into an oven that has been preheated to 125ºC. You’re basically going to leave it in there for anything from an hour to hour and half until it has reached your desired level of caramelisation. The one thing you need to do is a lot of stirring. 

Every 10-15 minutes you need to remove the tray and give the chocolate a really good stir. When the chocolate comes out of the oven it may look a little stiff, a little grainy. With a good stir the chocolate will smooth out and become liquid again. To prevent the chocolate from burning or become an unpleasantly grainy mess you must do this stirring very well and every 15 minutes. Don’t be tempted to leave the chocolate any longer between stirs, it will stiffen up to a place from which it cant be rescued. The reason I recommend white chocolate with at least 30% cocoa butter is that it melts thinner and is easier to work with. Once the chocolate has reached a rich golden brown colour remove it from the oven and scrape it into a container. I like to divide it into rectangular plastic trays so it almost resembles the original bar form it came in. Refrigerate until solid and then use however you fancy. You’ll note my cookie recipe only use 200g and my recipe for the chocolate uses 300g of white chocolate. The reason for this is two fold. The chocolate is so good you’ll need extra to account for everything you snack on as you make the cookie dough and secondly making a smaller batch makes it more prone to problems so 300g is the smallest batch I would recommend making.