A friend recently told me I say things that remind her of Liz Lemon, the hero of NBC's 30 Rock and my life. And I was incredibly flattered. Then I realised I'd probably been consciously and subconsciously quoting LL since I started watching the series.
Since Tina Fey started doing Weekend Update with Jimmy Fallon on Saturday Night Live, I have loved her. Funny, smart, left-handed (y'all don't know how much I love finding people who, like, me are left-handed. Seeing that familiar ink smudge up the side of someone's hand, or the incredibly dangerous way we hold knives and scissors - that's what it sounds like when doves cry), Tina is everything I want to be in this world.
Liz Lemon is one of the great TV characters. She works hard; takes things seriously when no one else will; she's sceptical of romances and friendships because, well, Dennis Duffy and Jenna Maroney; and loves food more than people. Nearly all of which I can relate to. Oh, and her eye-rolling skills are second to none. I've learned a lot about my own eye-rolling from Liz.
And lizzing.
That is a combination of laughing ang whizzing.
Tina Fey is my champion, spirit guide, spirit animal (are they two different things?), role model, and hero. It's through her comedy, and characters like Liz Lemon, who remind women that we don't have to compromise anything to be funny, and that we can work hard and have a family and we shouldn't have to feel guilty or apologise about anything we achieve or don't achieve along the way.
I had been putting off watching the final series of 30 Rock because, well, I didn't want the magic to end. And when I did finally watch it, I was so happy. And so sad. Happy because it was the perfect ending to the series, and sad because, well, no more LL sparring with Jack, no more crazy Tracy schemes, no more Jenna talking about being on carm-a-rah, no more of Kenneth's slightly crazy optimism, or Frank's wildly inappropriate trucker's caps. It could have been a bit cheesy (only makes cheesecake an even better choice), but it was a fitting end for all of the characters.
So, as a tribute to Liz and her wonderful adventures, I decided to make a Liz Lemon Cheesecake. Yeah, ok, not that complicated, really. It's just lemon cheesecake with the word Liz in front of it, you say. But if you think that, sir or madam, you're dead wrong. And a jerk. Because Liz Lemon cheesecake combines all of the best parts about Liz: cheese, and cake. Ok, it combines two things about Liz. And her name. Ahem.
Because last week I modified a simple recipe and, well, some (me) might say I fucked it up, I decided to try using a simple recipe and not modifying it. Much. The recipe is available here, so check it out.
It's essentially a biscuit base with butter and, er, biscuits, and a cheesecake mixture of cream cheese, vanilla essence, condensed milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest. No way to ruin this one, right? Ha! Er...
So. First step, crushing them old biscuits. The recipe suggests Marie biscuits (coincidentally, the name of my Aunty), but I took a risk (bought the ingredients before I found a recipe), and bought Malt biscuits. To crush them, you might use a food processor or one of those mortar and pestle things, but if you're me, you don't have any of those things. So you're (me) just going to crush them with a meat tenderiser or potato masher. Fun!
It's not as fast or as immediately accurate as a food processor, but what could be better than that quaint, homemade charm? Actually, it works really well. I did eventually give up, so it's not perfect (or perfik, if you're a diehard Darling Buds of May fan, which, come on, of course you are). But it looks ok.
Also, if you're me, you're not going to have a quiche dish or one of those other clear baking dish things, so think creatively about what you might put this motherfudging cheesecake in. A cup. On a pizza tray. In a friend's hand.
Sweet Fanny Durack! Where did that come from? And it has yellow on it. How appropriate! Here's an extra yellow tea towel to maintain the illusion I planned this all in advance!
So the base looks...ok. I can't tell if maybe it's a little dry and needs more butter, but since I'm not baking it like I might a base for, say, a slice, I'm not going to care too much about it. NO BAKE MEANS NO BAKE. And because my super cute retro homestyleeee pie dish is small, I had enough left over to fill another dish. Or shallow plastic container. Both now in fridge.
Now, for the next step, I get to crack open my new, improved, electric mixer. My $25 mixer. How do you like that? I upgraded. Just bought one cheap mixer for the price of two and a half cheaper, incredibly shoddy electric mixers. VALUE.
Beating cream cheese is flipping hard, y'all. But then the rest of it was fine. Great story, man. The recipe tells you to use lemon zest and one-third of a cup of lemon juice, but I'm not a diehard fan of lemon (but I am a Die Hard fan. Ahem), so I decided to keep the zest for decoration and just use the lemon juice in the actual mixture. And that is the story of how I learned to waste a lemon by only using the zest, and then only using half of that zest. It did occur to me to just juice the lemon, but I'd already used the juice and, so...I hate juicing, ok? It was never going to happen.
So the recipe says to beat the mixture until it increases in volume (that's what she said?) and I did that, and look! It looks nice!
Again, because I used a pie dish it made two cheesecakes. And I can only imagine how many more it might have made if I hadn't eaten
Done! So simple, y'all. Let's see if we can't just shotgun the whole in one sitting, eh? But then I got to what might be the saddest instruction on a recipe in the world: "leave overnight to set." WHAT! I want to eat it nowwwwww. I wanted to eat it before I'd even finished making it! What am I going to do between now and being able to eat it?
I would suggest binge-watching (my new favourite term) 30 Rock or reading Tina Fey's amazing book Bossypants. I also suggest doing those things while eating cheese, wearing a slanket.
I learned last week that cooking with nice biscuits means you can shovel the leftovers into your mouth as you go. And for an extra bit of fun, look how I put some cheesecake mixture on one of the malt biscuits!
Try it yourself and see how fun it is... to watch someone else make it and just eat it when it's ready!
UPDATE: I tried the cheesecake and it's, against all odds, delicious. Even though I went overboard on the lemon zest. The base, however, doesn't stay put - it's more a like cheese crumble. But after another piece the base is quite solid and, er, base-y? Maybe it was just at the edges.
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