Very sad, very upsetting news this morning. I went to the fridge, excited to see my cheesecake, and found that it hadn’t set. I removed it from my loose-base tin, and examined it on the worktop. Definitely not set. The consistency of the cheese element was like thick yoghurt. Without the edges of the pan to hold it up, the cheese started to collapse. Frantic, I cut myself a slice (or as much of a slice of yoghurt as you can cut) and put the rest back into the pan, causing a fair amount of mess in the process.
This is a disaster, it hasn’t set and while it doesn’t taste *too* awful, I’m not sure if I can stomach trying to eat the whole thing. I will take a picture later today to show you all. It’s tragic, very, very tragic. 
(
5pm: Picture time. I was baffled at this failure. Clearly the arrogance of my incredible brownie cake has come back to haunt me.
I’m currently eating as much of it as I can. In fact, this might be my tea tonight.
“Also, and I don’t want you to get excited, viewers, but my cheesecake is now setting in the fridge.”
“This is a disaster, it hasn’t set and while it doesn’t taste *too* awful, I’m not sure if I can stomach trying to eat the whole thing. It’s tragic, very, very tragic.
(”
I agree, and my hopes & well-wishes are with you in your time of need.
On the flip side, you could always try another dessert later in the month and feed the lemon cheese-flop to your dog/cat/disliked relative.
Useful dessert websites:
http://thefoody.com/pudding/index.html
http://www.alldessertrecipes.com/
http://www.dianasdesserts.com/
I personally like the third link the best but I’ve no idea on cost for most of them.
I’ll await the photo update of the cheese-flop fiasco!
so… if you throw the disaster away does that mean you subtract the costings of that from your budget or does it remain included and just chalked up as a bad experience?
I was thinking about it kerry, but while that seems reasonble on the one hand, on the other it seems wrong. In ‘real life’, a meal might go wrong, it’s a financial risk, so I might just have to absorb it.
Just logged in to hear about the disaster. Sorry to hear it was a failure PD.
If I was local, I would so offer to come over and make it for you. I cannot understand where it went wrong.
Only thing I can think of is that you overdid it with the lemon and made the mix too sloppy.
Shame. I don’t want to rub salt in the wound but I made one last night too, in your honour, and mine came out just dandy.
I want to send it to you… I’ll feel guilty eating it now.
Sorry to hear that…
I think you should keep it in your finansial records, I mean, you’re trying to do this as authentic as possible right? I think I would have a hard time convincing the supermarket to take back the bread I burned yesterday…
Easy cheesecake:
1 tub philedelphia plain cream cheese
400g tin of sweetend condensced (sp?) milk
Half a packet gingernut biscuits
1/4 cup lemon juice
teaspoon vanilla flavour
Enough melted butter to make the biscuits stick
make the base by crushing the biscuits and mixing with the melted butter, put in the tin
using a blender (or electric beater, or your muscles) mix the rest of the ingredients together – the lemon juice is what helps it set, if you didn’t use this before it’s probably what made it gooey
pour it over the biscuit base and chill