Sondesh Cheesecake Made using DIY Homemade Springform Pan

28 October

We have the festivals starting and I wanted to make a cheesecake with some traditional twist to it. The only problem - I didn't have a springform Pan which is what you need to make a cheesecake. And to make things difficult I didn't even have a round mold or a cookie cutter or anything that resembled that shape. Now I was making this for a collaboration entry in Instagram and didn't have the time left in which I could order something from Amazon. 

I did the next best thing I could - created a DIY Spring foam pan with some basic things available in your home. So check out this easy solution mentioned below.

Please note: I was making a mini cheese cake and hence the proportions are mentioned accordingly. If you want to make a full size cheesecake, scale up according to your need.

Materials Required [for 1 mini cheesecake mould]:

• A thick chart paper / any paper which is a bit sturdy [ even the edges of a box of sweets would do] - 2.5 inch x 10 inch [6 cm x 25 cm]
• Foil paper - 10 inch x 12 inch [25 cm  x  30 cm]
• Cello tape [medium thickness] - 1
• Scissor - 1

1. Start by cutting the chart paper in a size of 2.5 inch x 10 inch [6 cm x 25 cm]

2. Now cut the foil paper in 4 times the height of the chart paper . i.e. in dimension of  10 inch x 12 inch [25 cm  x  30 cm]. Lay the chart paper flat on the foil paper and start folding from one side just like the picture below. Continue till you have wrapped the whole foil paper around the chart paper. It should be around 4 folds. 

Tip: Foil paper will ensure the mould has a smooth wall and it will be very easy to demould the cheesecake.

Note: If you have a thin chart paper which is not so sturdy then you can go for more layers of foil paper. You can even go for more layers of chart paper and lay them one on top of another before you cover it all with a foil paper.

3. Once the foil paper is fully wrapped around the chart paper, fold in the extra edges and put a cello tape on each side to hold them together in place like the picture below.

4. Now take any flat surface like a table ledge. Place the wrapped chartpaper piece on the edge so that it will form an L shape and slowly press it with fingers. Do same for the complete surface area of the strip at little intervals. It will give a hammered feel to the overall strip. This will help in the next step when we want to make a perfect circular mould. Do this very carefully without applying too much pressure otherwise the foil paper might tear

Tip: pressing the chart paper all through will make it more malleable and will shape easily. This is an optional step but I recommend it.

5. Now make a circle of this strip with the cello taped side on the outside. There should be a 1 to 1/2 inch overlap where both the sides meet. Put a cello tape there to hold it in place. Your circular mould is ready.

6. Springform pan also has a layer below. What I did in this case was take a small circular steel plate, place the circular mould on it with some space remaining, and then tape the mould to the plate with a cello tape again. This tape will make sure the circular mould is held in place.

Tip: if you do not have any steel plate you can take a big square cardboard of about 8 inch x 8 inch dimension and cover it with foil paper and then use it as the base instead.

Top View

Now you can go ahead and make your cheesecake as usual in this DIY Springform Pan. It is easy, cheap and fun!

I have made a sondesh cheesecake in it and the recipe will be up soon!

How to Demould?

1. We have used so many celloptapes just to make the demoulding process easy. Start by removing the take that holds the mould to the plate.

2. Take the mould off the plate and now cut through the celotape that holds the sides of the mould together. Now slowly and carefully peel off the mould from the body of the cheesecake. Ta-Da! You are all done!

Tip: I brushed butter all along the sides before setting my cheese cake in this, it helped in the demoulding process.

Can the mould be reused?

 

Yes it can be. You just need to dispose the foil paper on top of the cardboard each time, as it might tear a bit during the demoulding process. Keep the cardboard strip, and everytime you want to make a cake you just put a fresh foil paper and go about it.

2nd October:

We are into October already and it still feels like monsoon. The Met department says that rains will go late this year. That means more gloomy days ahead. So anyway, this week I was doing some recipe Contest on Instagram and the recipe that we had chosen to create were fall recipes. But unfortunately I checked that I didn't have any fall décor with me in the house. Amazon India also didn't have much to offer if I wanted a quick delivery within two days. So I decided to go back to the drawing board and make some fall leaves myself. 

In case I haven't already talked about this, I love making any kind of crafts from a very young age and I had started painting frequently after moving to my own house last year. I hadn't painted much during the lockdown, was focusing more on creating new recipes. So when I started this fall leaf project, I was totally overjoyed. Painting always makes me feel happy. That's the power of creation.

In the end it turned out to be one fun project that you can do with your kids and this is very less messy too, at least under the guidance of an adult. So bring out your color and papers and lets make some beautiful fall leaves.

Materials Required:

• A4 sized white paper - 2
• Newspaper - 2 full sheets ( 1 sheet having two joined pages)
• Acrylic or water color - Orange, red, yellow, brown
• Water - 2 small cups
• Brush - 1
• Pencil - 1
• Scissor - 1

Remember you need to start the project at least a day before you want to use the paper leaves. I started two days before.

1. Take about 2 tbsp water in each of the small cups or saucers and add one color in each. Mix them well with the water with the help of a brush. E.g. I went ahead with the following colors together:

Paper 1 : Brown + Orange

Paper 2 : Yellow + Red

You can also have other combination like : Magenta + Red, Red + Brown, Green + yellow etc.. Just use your imagination according to the theme you want.

2. Spread the newspaper first on the floor or the table wherever you are making the craft, remember we don't want messy stains. Now place the two A4 papers at a distance form one another

3. Now as suggested above, take the brown color water and gently at an angle pour it on the first A4 paper. Now on top of that pour the orange color water. Now gentle hold the paper on either sides in your hands and first tilt it to the right so that the watery colors start covering the right side of the page and then tilt it to the left. DO these very gently, as we want the colors to mix creating some light uneven patterns. You can repeat the tilt a couple of times to cover the entire paper. If you still feel the colors haven't covered the paper, you can use your brush to coat the white areas. Let the color texture be uneven, don't use brush all over the page. That will give a realistic feel to the final leaves.

Note: Please not the papers will be very soft at this point so handle with care or else it might tear.

4. Now repeat with yellow and red for paper number 2. 

5. Leave these papers to dry overnight. 

6. Next morning we continue on the project. Now fold the paper just the like the picture into 1.5" folds (each side of fold to be 1.5"). The white part to be folded over so that we can draw on it. This will yield maximum of a 2 inch diameter leaf.

Note: You can scale up the size of the leaves as per your requirement, just make the folds bigger.

7. On the half start drawing the outline of a leaf. It can be a simple curve or pointy edges ones. Go creative with the leaf shapes. Basically you need to just draw one half, when we cut it will give us symmetrical similar shape for the other half too.

8. Cut the papers along the drawn line. If the kid is small to handle scissor, any elder can help with the cutting. Now you will see you have got a beautifully textured leaf. Start drawing the veins with a black pen or pencil as I have done.

Additional Tip : Use a punching machine to punch some hole into the paper leaves to give a moth eaten feel

That's it you have your perfect DIY paper fall leaves. Use it as your photo props or decorating the house for Halloween.