Teeny weeny Roaring Forties blue cheesecakes

What are the Roaring Forties, you ask? Well in this case, it's a blue cheese made on King Island, off the coast of Tasmania. The cheese happens to be named after the infamous Roaring Forties gales which bring winds of more than 100km per hour to King Island. (I'm not sure why they're infamous - perhaps they had an affair with the East Australian Current...haha). I presume this reflects the strong blue flavour of the cheese.

Really, rather than the weather, we should be wondering about blue cheese cheesecakes - the recipe we're testing is the Stilton Baby Blue Cheesecakes from the Baking Bible. What an odd concept. Apparently savoury desserts are a trending thing (thanks to Jeniffer for this news). This trend passed me by and I have to say it doesn't really appeal to me.

However Rose gives a variation for a savoury version which has double the cheese. I made this version and cut out most of the sugar. I made tiny hors d'oeuvres size and ate them with bitter greens. They were very creamy and strongly blue cheese tasting with a nuttiness from the walnut base. I did enjoy them and they would probably make an interesting starter with some bitey rocket and tart apple, when served to the right crowd.

I only made half the recipe this week and cheated by using walnut crumbs instead of halves. This means I didn't have to try and get the skin off after toasting them in the oven. It's a job everyone seems to hate.

You'll have to excuse the yellowy night-vision photos. The toasted walnuts are pulverised and then pressed into the tin. I used a baking tin that I think I bought because I might need it...one day. And I did. It is the perfect size for hors d'oeuvres-size baking. I was a bit chuffed with my paper lining technique and they did work well when I went to get the little blighters out once they were cooked. I'm not the kind of careful person who can turn something delicate out of a tin with any great success without some technological assistance.

The next part of the recipe is just as easy. You cream the cream cheese with some cornflour and sugar (although I used only half a tablespoon of sugar). Then you add the green slime to the cream cheese mixture... It doesn't look too good but it's just temporary and I love blue cheese so I wasn't put off by this rather snotty step in the recipe (it's actually the blue cheese mashed into some sour cream).

Then you mix it until it's smooth which takes longer than you think and then add egg and mix again.

The light is really bad in this photo but you can see that I've poured the blue cream cheese mix into the tin. I tasted the mixture at this stage and was 1. a bit alarmed and 2. regretting putting any sugar in at all.

I had some walnuts and mixture left over so I made a slightly larger cheesecake. 

I really wish this one was lemon cheesecake.

They did look very sweet in the small version and they would make an interesting canape although they are pretty rich. I can't imagine enjoying the sweet version of this dessert but I guess you never know. I can't see myself trying it anytime soon when there are so many other things to bake.

Next week is French Orange Cream Tart which sounds uncomplicatedly delicious.