If it's not icing sugar, it's brick dust/Daim Bar Cheesecake recipe

So, I've been up since 5.30 am with a coffee, couple of Co-codamol, a spasming back and what feels like the start of a sore throat.   Let me give you a little update on what's been going on this week.  You can laugh, while I sob and rock as I type, ok?

By Wednesday night the house was wonderfully tidy (ok, wonderfully tidy for MY house).  Aside from actually preparing the buffet on the Saturday, my Party 'to-do' lists had diminished to - last minute steam mopping the floors, cleaning the bathroom and downstairs toilet, party music playlist shoved on my MP3 player, baking cakes and making the desserts, putting up the gazebo frame and buying fresh bread, salad and cold meats.   I was doing so well?  On the ball or what!  The wine order had arrived from Naked Wines, and had been sitting happily in the reasonably empty and freshly painted porch.  I'd shown great restraint all week, and feeling quite smug with myself, I decided to relax, open a nice bottle of Merlot, and listen to some music upstairs.  

Yesterday morning, I wake up at 5.30 am again, head slightly pounding.  Ok, slight understatement, it felt like someone was playing the bongos in my head.  I made the packed lunches, tidied around, sorted Adam's swimming stuff out, and decided to make the cheesecake so I could freeze it.  One less job to do...

Daim Bar no-bake Cheesecake

By noon, I was dying.  I said to Mr G that I had to go and have a power hour on the bed.   After half an hour I heard voices downstairs.  It was the plasterers.  Half awake, half asleep I heard them knocking on the walls upstairs and downstairs... then I heard those magic words. 

'This can't be patched, it'll all have to come off.  If we knock the loose bits off, it'll all come off.'

I sat bolt upright and texted Mr G.  Did I just hear what I thought I'd heard?  Next minute, it sounds like my house is falling down.  Incoming text.  It's all coming off.   Wah.  Wah indeed.  I was stranded in our bedroom.  Until 3.30 pm.  Mr G had the hoover out before he'd closed the front door on them and made me stay in my bedroom.  Because he knew if I had seen the amount of dust, that I would have gone into meltdown.

Oh.  My.  God

So this is the stairway wall.  Mr G commented that it was very... cosmopolitan... that bare brick was all the rage and perhaps we should leave it like this.   They're back this morning, at 8.30 am.  The day I am supposed to be cleaning, baking and mopping.   Popping into town for last minute bits.  Yeah.  So that teaches me a huge lesson here, stop being so insufferably smug, and don't drink wine on a school night. 

The cheesecake recipe if anyone wants it, I've diverted a bit from the usual recipe, using more cream and cream cheese than usual, because it can be a tad rich.  The Daim bars add so much sweetness to it.

1.  Melt 200g dark chocolate with 150 ml of double cream, stirring until melted.  Set aside to cool.

2.  Blitz 300g digestive biscuits in a food processor.  Add 75 ml of melted butter, and 1 heaped tablespoon of brown sugar.  Press this into a greased, lined cake tin.  I think mine was 8 inch, but don't quote me.  I am evidently not the best judge of many things.

3.  Whisk 250 ml of double cream until thick. 

4.  Put 400g full fat soft cheese into a mixing bowl and whisk to ensure there are no lumps.  Whisk in the thickened cream.

5.  Add about a teaspoon of vanilla essence.

6.  When the chocolate cream mixture is cool, fold this in to the cream and cheese.

7.  Crush up some Daim bars, in this instance I used bags of Mini Daim, as they were on offer.  Fold them into the mixture.   Spoon this over the biscuit base.

8.  Top with more crushed Daim bars or mini Daim.  Pop in the fridge, or wrap well and freeze. 

So, that's this week's madness.  It was all going so well too... I should have known, shouldn't I?   So today I will be baking and making desserts, here's a little taster of what one of them contains. 

The restraint I have shown for these Reese's to have lasted the week!

So, with the alarm due to go in four minutes, I am going to go for a quick shower, see if that wakes me up.  Happy Friday everyone, make it a great one :-)

M x