Picks by Clarke

Hi there!

January has been a very spoiled month for me but for my bank account. I've bought a lot of things this month, and most of them were kind of expensive. It all started off at christmas, were I got two giftcards to an expensive shoppingcenter, because I really wanted a Ralph Lauren shirt. So I went January shopping with some of my friends, and I guess I kind of went a bit overboard (I guess you could say that I bought some extra christmas presents for myself).

Then my backpack that I bought in Berlin this summer, decided that it could not carry my two kilograms heavy laptop, my books and pencilcase, so the straps of it fell off, in the middle of the hallway at my school. Obviously had to buy a new one (which is much better quality).

But anyways, I bought a few thing that was "needed" and the rest, well, I guess I just craved a lot of things this month (and now it is definitely "saving up"-time!).

Here is what I bought:

Ralph Lauren shirt:

Calvin Klein underwear:

Marc Jacobs iPhone cover:

Monki t-shirt:

Urban Decay eyeshadow:

Birger et Mikkelsen "Day" bag:

Herschel backpack:

Hello there!

This past weekend I held a little birthday dinner-party for some of my really good friends, and it was so nice to just sit and talk to everyone and we had a really nice evening.

Because it was a kind of "dinner-party", I had been cooking all of the food and what I want to share with you today is how I made the dessert, an Oreo cheesecake!

The cake wasn't that hard to make and does NOT require any baking at all. So if you're very good at burning cakes in the oven, this is a perfect recipe for you!

Here is what you'll need:

For the crust:

200g Oreo-biscuits
60g melted butter

For the cheese-filling:

300g cream-cheese
150g sour cream (18% fat)
150ml cream
Juice from 0.75 limes (if you really like the sour taste, I recommend using 1 1/2 limes)
Zest from 1 lime (optional)
80g sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean
4 sheets of gelatine

Topping:

Strawberries
Whipped cream

I recommend making a double portion if you want a taller cheesecake, if you're using the same size tin as I am (diameter of the springform-tin = 22cm).

Instructions:

Start of by crushing all of your Oreo-biscuits. You can crush them however you want to, but I found that the easiest way, was just to put all the biscuits in a blender.

After you have crushed all your Oreo-biscuits into little pieces, you're going to pour your melted butter over the Oreo's, mix it all together, and then push the biscuit-mixture down into your springform tin.

After you've done that you're just going to let it cool for a bit.

And while the crust is cooling down, you can begin making the cheese-filling.

Start of by mixing the cream cheese with the sugar, and then add vanilla bean and the lime zest. After that is mixed all together, you're going to gently mix in the sour cream with a spatula.

Now you going to whip your cream stiff, and then also gently mix that in.

Now you're just going to soften up your gelatine in cold water, and then after about 5 minutes, take the gelatine up from the water and melt in in the microwave with some of the water hanging in the gelatine. Be very careful with this step, the gelatine melts VERY QUICKLY in the microwave, and you want to take it out, when all of it is a thick liquid.

After that, you're going to pour your lime juice into the gelatine and mix it together with a whisk, so that it's all combined. Then you're just going to let et cool for about 2-3 minutes, and after that, put a little amount of your cheese-mixture into the gelatine-mixture, and whisk that together very well, so that the gelatine doesn't make chunks in the cake.

After you've whisked the gelatine-mixture together to an even liquid, you're going to pour that into the rest of the cheese-mixture and also gently mix that together, until it's all combined.