Masterchef mischief

Lime cheesecake - the spare bits

Masterchef has much to answer for. I don't just mean the hours we spend drooling over the incredible creations that they manage to pull off, week after week. It's the idea these so-called amateurs implant in us hapless viewers' minds that we too can conjure up incredible culinary creations. 

A few months ago, I wrote of my intention to whip up an easy-peasy panna cotta and use it as a foil for the fun-looking endeavour of spinning sugar and caramel creations into fancy shapes. On that occasion, it was Celebrity Masterchef putting foolish ideas into my head. 

Since I'm vegetarian, it took me a while to find a suitable recipe that sounded easy to make and used agar flakes rather than gelatine to set the pudding. After much searching, the Waitrose store in the basement of John Lewis on Oxford Street came up trumps. 

When I eventually had the right combination of ingredients, time and recipe, I made a right hash of what several food bloggers experienced in Hawaiian cookery had assured me was an easy to make much loved classic, coconut panna cotta. Coconut is mildly less fattening than double cream, which is good, but I didn't manage to get my agar flakes to dissolve sufficiently. When I came to wash up, I realised a fair chunk had congealed in the tumbler in which I'd mixed it and didn't make it as far as the saucepan where it would set the coconut milk 'custard'. 

I'll try the recipe again, as it tasted good, but my expectations of what constitutes simple on a cookery show have been suitably adjusted. 

Lo and behold, one of the contestants in the final of Masterchef this year had to use agar flakes to make an item in a hold (a Michelin-starred chef wanted an edible barbed wire ring). Seemingly, Andrew's first ever attempt was a triumph. Really? Honestly? 

Today's creation looks a little more successful. I've whipped up a lime cheesecake using my wonderful new food mixer. The flan tray I have with a removable base wasn't quite deep enough, so I've got excess filling. Thankfully, some pretty glasses were able to accommodate the spare, so I crumbled in some more digestive biscuit and butter base mix, packed it down and spooned over the lime cheesecake filling. 

Smoothing off the top and neatly transferring the mixture to the glasses wasn't *wholly* successful, as some telltale smears suggest, but if the TV chefs can fudge, so can I.