ANZAC Biscuit, Wattle Seed and Macadamia Baked Cheesecake

This week at work we had an "Australiana" bake-off competition. If you couldn't guess by the name, we had to make a dish that best signified Australia. With around 250 people in my department, I saw it as a good opportunity to prove my cooking skills after talking up some of the more "extreme" items I've made (the 14 pie-pie, 16 choc cheesecake, 13 animal pizza, etc).

So I thought long and hard and came up with this.



Ingredients for the ANZAC Biscuits:
- 120g butter
- 2 tablespoons of golden syrup
- 1 tablespoon of hot water
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1 cup of rolled oats
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 3/4 cup of plain flour
- 3/4 cup of sugar

Method:
- Mix the oats, flour, salt and sugar in a bowl.
- Melt the butter and golden syrup together in the microwave.
- Add the butter and syrup to the dry ingredients. Add the hot water and baking soda and it should start foaming.
- Mix ingredients together and set dough aside.

Ingredients for the cheesecake:
- 2 packs of cream cheese, softened
- 3 eggs
- 395g tin of sweetened condensed milk
- 1 tablespoon of toasted, ground wattle seeds
- 1 tablespoon of chopped macadamia nuts
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Method:
- Grease a medium sized springform tin. Press around half of the biscuit dough to the base. Bake in a 180 degree oven for around 8 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
- In a mixing bowl, mix the cream cheese until soft and smooth. Then add in the condensed milk, wattle seeds, macadamias and vanilla extract. Mix, but don't over mix. Lumps are fine at this stage.
- Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing after each egg.
- Pour the mixture into the tin. Tear off teaspoon sized pieces of the remaining biscuit dough and drop into the mixture.
- Tap the tin on the counter to remove air bubbles. Bake in an 180 degree oven for 45 minutes.
- Turn off the heat and leave for 30 minutes. Then refridgerate until cold.


I thought my team would easily win with that, but we lost to a chocolate cake in the shape of a koala that may or may not have come from packet cake mix. Although when it came time to eat the food, the cheesecake was the first thing to go out of everything.

Sometimes life isn't fair. For those times, you need to take comfort in a thick slice of cheesecake.