Caramallow Cheesecake
Almost seven months on from the February earthquake, things are returning to normal in this, the city of gardens and demolition sites. Buses are running late, boy racers are finding their haunts again, graffiti is being applied to sundry areas at various levels of artistic ability. But most importantly of all, cake outlets rendered inoperable by seismic activity are opening once more.
Though the immediate area around the central city is bereft of much in the way of eateries, some lonely locales have stood up proud amidst the wasteland. One of these is The Coffee House. This has long been a nice mid-scale place; a pseudo-upscale villa with the touch of Merivale chic minus the insufferableness. And generally the cabinets surrender a decent variety of cake options.
When recently we visited, a few cakes sat in the reconsecreated cabinet: a chocolate torte (a common entry, but in a slightly different style here), a banoffee pie (often dodgy), and this, something we had not before witnessed. Something we had to request the name of, and when we heard it, it was a name that inspired a sense of excitement. It was... the Caramallow Cheesecake.
Caramallow Cheesecake
Cake Classes: marshmallow, caramel, novelty
Cost: $7.00
Available from: The Coffee House
Construction, Texture, and Structural Integrity
This represents a slightly different take on cheesecake than your garden variety cheesecake.* Many cheesecakes are just your straight sweetened-cheese layer atop a biscuity-base. Some get a bit more inventive and slap on a topping – perhaps something fruity, or akin to ganache – but usually there’s not significant variation.
(* Though, really, although “garden variety” denotes something that is run-of-the-mill and unremarkable, a garden variety cheesecake would actually be quite something. If I could grow cheesecakes in my garden, I’d get a lot more interested in sustainability and all that. Why do we say “garden variety”, anyway? What’s that? You don’t say it? Look, stop being so disagreeable, we’ve been through this before.)
But the makers of this cheesecake chose to experiment a bit. Atop the standard biscuit base is a layer of sweet caramel goodness – so far, pretty normal, though plenty delicious; the caramel of an excellent creamy quality. The next layer mixes things up, however: a thick layer of MallowPuff-style marshmallow settles across the caramel, with a thin – so thin that it’s barely there – crust of chocolate finishing off the ensemble. One might compare it initially to a marshmallow Easter egg, but what it truly resembles is a MallowPuffs/Toffee Pop Collision biscuit.*
(* Incidentally, while these are great and all, aren’t they ludicrously overpriced? Something like eight biscuits for $5, if they’re not on special. Why, in my day, we could buy fifty biscuits with sixpence and still have enough for some taffy. Damn kids these days.)
So it certainly has great novelty value, but delving deeper one fails to be compelled with the composition. Each of the components is textured well enough – the caramel perhaps the highlight – but as a whole it never quite coalesces. The primary flaw is the failure of the cake’s components to adhere adequately to each other. The marshmallow comes unstuck from the caramel, resulting in a whole lot of distress and bother as one attempts to re-engineer the cake into something resembling order and maybe, just maybe get a forkful which has some sense of satisfaction, because it’s not like anything else in your life is really working out you hoped, and once, just once it might be nice if your food did what it was designed to do and remained in a form that provided both satisfaction and sustenance. Is that too much to ask!? IS IT, CAKE!?
On the plus side, the blend of textures was delightful when one could combine them successfully.
Taste
The marshmallow was similar in taste to the marshmallow portion of the aforementioned MallowPuff, or some varieties of Easter egg – sweet, but not so much as to be sickly. The chocolate was largely unnoticeable; a gentle accent on the totality.
The caramel was where it was really at on this one. This wasn’t the staid dense caramel of mass-produced slice; this was that premium crafted stuff where you can taste a bunch of subtle flavours and notes, and not be lying about it like you would if you were saying the same thing about wine. Quite remarkably, in a mouthful all the individual ingredients seem to make their presence known in succession, yet without ever becoming unpalatable. This could be the sign of a true sugar master at work, though in all likelihood it’s just a nice unintentional success, because that’s the way the world tends to work.
The biscuit must have been unmemorable, for we remember nothing about it.
Extras
No surprises, merely a dual tuft of cream applied to the western side of the plate. However, it ought to be noted that this spread a little bit too far west, and drips of it became familiar with the table top. Cake servers must be made aware that the application of cream is a delicate process, particularly if it has not been chilled adequately.
Concluding Thoughts
The novelty factor of the caramallow cheesecake makes it worth a try, and if you’re particularly keen on continuing to re-engineer your food as you eat it, this presents your perfect opportunity. However, if you just want to have your cake then eat it, the caramallow cheesecake is not up to repeat performances.
