Cardamom Cheesecake Bars

 Ok I'm on the verge of collapsing right now.. But I need to get this 15th post up..I'm so tired and stressed..

What am I doing with my life?  I just did horribly on a class test.  Horribly both on an absolute sense and a relative sense.  I hate my clever classmates.  I'm not meant for academia.  I wish I could just stop all this and cook.  I wish somebody would pay me to make these for them.  These were such a hit at my weekly psychology society lunches - the cardamom really adds a nice touch.   I wish I could just sell these. 

Make sure you use cream cheese at room temperature, or else they won't be well mixed into the batter..like as you can see I hadn't thought it through and you can see the white clumps. 

On the bright side - I met a fan today! A fan of Happy Belly.  Emma - it was so lovely to meet you.  I was so honored to have a fan.  Please do stalk me, it's not creepy, it's flattering hahah. 

So these are great if you cut them up, or you can use the same idea for an actual cheese cake. 


Ingredients
Crust
110g butter, cold, cubed
50g sugar
1/2 tsp salt
150g flour

Topping
5 cardamom pods
4 eggs
6 tbsp flour
1/4 cup milk
200g cream cheese, room temperature
Juice of 1/2 lemon
250g sugar

Method

Crust

Grease and line a 30x30cm baking pan with parchment paper.

Put all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz until it becomes breadcrumb-like.  Then take it out and roughly form it into a ball.  Press the ball onto the greased pan and just press it out to cover the entire bottom surface of it.  Prick all over with form and bake for 20 minutes until golden-brown.  Remove from oven and reduce temperature to 160C. 

Topping

Crack open the cardamom pods and ground the seeds using a mortar and pestle. 

Beat the eggs with the sugar until pale and fluffy.  Beat in the cream cheese and all the other ingredients. 

Pour mixture on top of the crust and bake for 25-35 minutes or until set.  Should be kind of soft but definitely solid.