Lin-er will be celebrating her 21st birthday very soon. I'm still in a dilemma on what I should give her as a memorable birthday present and thought something I bake specially for her will be a nice one, isn't it? Initially, I thought of baking swiss roll and kept practising it for 3 days in a roll. Shun, Ning and myself ate nothing but swiss roll for breakfast and dessert last week. Sorry darling, I don't know if I've made you tired of swiss roll, but am sure you are enjoying it whenever you asked for it. :)

All of a sudden on the past Monday, I recalled Lin-er told me that my chicken pie is her favourite, so why not make her a chicken pie instead? Yes yes, and picture on the left is the result of the test bake in the wee hours this morning! The 5 small little ones were given to Lin-er for her colleagues since today is the last day of her internship and the big one went to my colleagues. Feedback on the pies were simply fantastic. I'm overwhelmed with all the nice comments. One of my colleagues even commented, "Wendy, you are so inspiring.", cos I've aroused their interest into cooking and baking again. Hahahaha. So this shall be Lin-er's 21st birthday present this coming Sunday!

On our way home on 31 May 2012, Thursday evening after seeing a TCM, we boarded a bus at Chinatown. As soon as Ning boarded the bus and sat beside an old uncle, she covered her nose and ask what was that unpleasant smell? I was enjoying the aroma of durians, but felt a little embarassed by her question cos I knew it was that uncle hugging bags of durians in his hands. Immediately, the uncle unpacked his packages and handed over 3 boxes of durians and 1 box of jackfruit to us. We could not reject the offer as the uncle insisted us to accept them. Surprisingly, Ning said "thank you" instantaneously. I was laughinig to myself, I thought you said they were smelly?
3 boxes of durians!!! What am i going to do with them? Recently, the whole household was not feeling very well, durians will aggravate the matter, so eventually a box went to my mother in law and brother in law. I had wanted to bring the other 2 boxes to share with my colleagues, but afraid that they might invite complaints from the caucasians in the office, so the idea was dropped at the last minute.
An idea came... why not a durian cake? With that, I went online to search for recipe and found this baked durian cheesecake recipe from Grace Kitchen Corner and decided that I should give this recipe a go. The result was a delectable dessert with rich aroma of durians embedded in cream cheese. I did not blend the durians as I wanted a cake with a little durian strands to go in between the teeth when we sink into the cheesecake. OMG! This is so devilish, yet so heavenly! Feedback from family and friends are.... this is really really yummy! Not too sweet with aroma of durians in every bite. Durians and cheese are wonderful combination. My hiccup was the not so well done design though and the control of temperature not so fantastic. I feel that the texture could be a little firmer which I'm still thinking how to go about that. Below is the recipe and I did only a little modifications:

Recipe for 8 inches:
For the base:                                                         
200g digestive biscuits      
100g butter, melted (I use 80g)

For the filling:
500g cream cheese
caster sugar 
220g durian flesh  (I use 250g in order to finish using what I have)
3 eggs (medium size, total about 160g) 
90ml milk
1 tbsp cornstarch + 1/4 tsp cornstarch

Deco: 1 tsp cocoa powder + 2tsp water & some Oreo cookie crumbs for the side.

Method:
1.       To make the base, stir all ingredients until combined. Press mixture into base. Set aside. (I baked the crust at 180C for 8-10min in order to harden the base. Just a note: this will give a thick crust, you might want to reduce the digestive biscuit and butter accordingly if you want to have thinner crust.)
2.      To make the filling, beat cream cheese, sugar and durian flesh until smooth. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3.      Beat in milk and cornstarch until blended. Reserve 1 tbsp cheese mixture for topping, the rest mixture pour into tin.
4.      To make the topping, mix well cocoa powder with water. Add in 1 tbsp of reserved cheese mixture, stir until well blended. Pipe on top of the surface of cheese mixture and draw net pattern with skewer.
5.      Steam baked at 170C for 45 minutes (my oven 150C for 50 minutes) or until light brown.
6.      Remove from the heat and leave to cool completely. Chill in fridge 5 hours or overnight. Decorate sides of cake with crushed Oreo cookie crumbs.