Cheesecake

I bake like a 5 year old. With glee and abandon, no care for precise measurements and getting stuff all over my face. Well who's to know that if you stick an electric beater thing in a bowl full of cream cheese mixture that it's going to splash up in the air very fast? Now there's cream cheese mixture on the coffee machine, on the walls and on my face. But mmm, it's quite yummy. It calls for an 18cm cake dish. Wonder how big that is and try and count approximately 18cm with my fingers. That'll do. Except when I stick the biscuit crumbs in the dish they make a small puddle in the middle. This won't do at all. Maybe it's because I ate some of the crumbly biscuit mixture with butter drizzled on it? (Reminder to self: try new French cellulite patches that mum bought yesterday. I wonder if wearing them while licking a buttery bowl of biscuit crumbs could possibly have any beneficial effect?)

I find a new cake dish, although I've already smeared the other one with butter, but no greaseproof paper because I don't have any, and it's silly. Who needs greaseproof paper? Recipe calls for 300g ricotta and 200g cream cheese. Except the ricotta comes in a 400g tub and the cream cheese in a 300g tub, there's no point in leaving a bit behind that no one will eat. So let's just make that 400g ricotta, yip, that's like a quarter more, yay, my maths is really good so let's make all the ingredients one quarter more...so 200g cream cheese is 250g, oh well fuggit, I'll just put in 300g. No point in wasting 50g.

Lemons. Oh shit I forgot to buy any. Right, there are 2 half lemons in the fridge, I squeeze them and manage to get the juice out. Now recipe calls for lemon zest. Shit. Shit. Shit. I now have to zest the lemons I have already squeezed. They're juicy, and squashed flat and not co-operating but I am determined. I manage to stab a lemon half with a fork to hold it still while I zest away with the other hand. It takes about half an hour to get a tablespoon of zest. I add the zest of an orange to make up the difference. Well who says it can't be "orange and lemon cheesecake" that's much more original. Looking chuffed with myself I think "I'm so Jamie Oliver with my insouciant approach to cooking!" (Ok, that is a slightly pompous I-know-how-to-use-big-words sort of word" but it's a good one and it's French which is where I am right now...so excusez-moi. It means "without worry" or "carefree" if you didn't know).

Bung cheesecake into oven and stand there looking pleased with myself. I think this is what I enjoy most about baking: licking the bowl and standing in front of the oven feeling pleased with myself.

Right, off to find the cellulite patches before I eat the cheesecake. I suppose apart from my brilliant maths ability, the swearing and the cellulite patches, I can say I bake like a five year old.