Diwali celebrations are meant for the lighting, decorations, love, and happiness plus too much of delicious delights! Yes, here I’m talking about the desserts that are specially made for various occasions. Not only this, you can enjoy them on your normal days as well. And listen, haven’t you forgotten something? Of course, yes! After all, how can we escape from the topic of desserts without cakes and cookies? So here, I’m going to help you out with some mouth-watering and finger-licking delicious recipes of cakes and cookies.
1. Zesty lemon and cherry cheesecake
Ingredients:
- 2 cups plain sweet biscuit crumbs (I used McVite's Digestive biscuits)
- 75g unsalted butter, melted
- 375g cream cheese, softened
- 500g ricotta
- 4 eggs
- 2 tablespoons corn flour
- 2 tablespoons cold water
- 1 1/2 cups caster sugar
- 1 1/2 cups morello cherries (I buy the 680g glass jar)
- Finely chopped zest and juice of 1 lemon
- Fresh cherries, to decorate
- 1 teaspoon icing sugar, to dust
- Oddy Uniwraps
Method:
- Line up your non-stick pan with the Oddy Uniwraps, the food wrapping paper that will allow you to avoid stickiness of the batter. Now, prepare the base of butter.
- Take a bowl and combine well the crumbs of biscuit and melted butter. Press the mixture firmly into the base of the pan and refrigerate it for 30 minutes.
- Preheat your oven to 150 degrees. Take a bowl and mix cornflour and water together to make a runny paste. Put cream cheese in a food processor and whiz until it turns smooth. Add ricotta to it and whiz again to combine. Now, add eggs, cornflour mixture, sugar, lemon zest, and juice and whiz them all again making it into a fine paste.
- Pour 2/3 of the cream cheese filling into pan, sprinkle cherries over, and then cover with remaining cheesecake mixture. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. Check to see if the cheesecake is set in the middle if not, bake for another 10-15 minutes.
- Cool down the pan at room temperature and pull out your cake with the help of the Oddy Uniwraps and transfer it to the serving plate.
- Right before serving, sprinkle icing sugar with the help of a tea strainer and add fresh cherries for the toppings.
2. Love Heart Cookies
Ingredients:
- 1 & 1/2 cups castor sugar
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1 large egg
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- Icing glaze2 1/4 cups icing sugar
- 2 tbsp glucose syrup
- 2 tbsp milk
- Food coloring of your choice
- Oddy Uniwraps
Method:
- Take a bowl and add cream butter and sugar in a bowl and whisk it using an electric whisker until it becomes light and fluffy.
- Beat the egg and vanilla essence in the whisked mixture. Now, add flour, baking powder and salt in it. Mix it well to get a smooth consistency.
- Divide the dough in half and gather into balls. Flatten them over the disks and cover it with Oddy Uniwraps. Refrigerate it for 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 190°C. Line a baking sheet with Oddy Uniwraps and set aside.
- On a floured surface, roll the dough to ½ cm thickness and cut it out with a heart-shaped cookie cutter.
- Place your heart-shaped cookies on the baking tray and bake it for about 13 minutes or till it becomes golden brown.
- Transfer cookies to cool.
- Mix the coloring ingredients in cream and color your hearts the way you like. Serve it after cooling it for half an hour.
3. No Bake Cheese Nutella Cake
Ingredients:
- 1 packet biscuits (any of your choice)
- 3/10 cup unsalted butter (softened)
- 3/4 cup toasted hazelnuts
- 1 jar Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread (small)
- 500 g cream cheese
- 1/2 cup icing sugar
- Oddy Uniwraps
Method:
- Line a pan with Oddy Uniwraps and set aside.
- Put the biscuits in the grinder and grind them well to make it a rough crumb. Take a bowl and add butter, 1/3 cup of the toasted hazelnuts and 1 tbsp of Nutella. Mix it well and combined.
- Press crumb evenly onto the pan and flatten using the base of a glass. Chill it while making the topping.
- Beat the softened cream cheese with the remaining Nutella and icing sugar until it combines well. Empty whole of the content over chilled base and make it a smooth top. Sprinkle remaining toasted hazelnuts over the top and chill for 3-4 hours. Serve straight from the fridge.
4. White Chocolate Cheesecake
Ingredients:
- Base:100g white chocolate, chopped
- 1¼ cups Kellogg's Rice Bubbles
- Filling: 250g white chocolate, chopped
- 500g cream cheese
- ½ cup caster sugar
- ½ cup thickened cream
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- Oddy Uniwraps
Method:
- Microwave white chocolate on high for 2 minutes stirring every 30 seconds until almost fully melted.
- Stir the melted chocolate till you get a smooth texture of it.
- Mix them well with the Kellogg’s Rice Bubbles and use a spoon to press into the plane base of sheet of Oddy Uniwraps Now place to one side.
- Melt 150g of chocolate as per directions above. Place it into the mixer with all ingredients except remaining chocolate and grind it until smooth.
- Using a wooden spoon, stir through the remaining chopped white chocolate.
- Empty the mixture over base and place it into the refrigerator. Allow to set for at least 2 hours and serve with the toppings of fresh berries.
- It will be best if made one or two days ago before of its use.
Additional Tip:
- Try using Milk Chocolate and Kellogg’s Coco Pops.
- 900-watt microwave used. Timings may vary with different models and brands of microwaves.
- Strawberries, pears, apples, etc, can also be used for the toppings.
I hope, this time, you will make your Diwali even much more rejoiced and special with all these desserts and found this article useful as well.