Easy & healthy recipe. I added spinach and different types of mushrooms per other raters. However, I had to keep adding (a lot of) water as the ingredients seem to suck it up. Also, my barley looked bloated and scary. Good enough for home eating but I'd be too embarrassed to serve to guests. The water and barley issues could be my own fault. My husband liked it though and that's all that matters.

Reviewed On: Mar. 20, 2008

I used this ganache on Chantal's cheesecake just like The Italian Chef. In fact, my cheesecake looks a lot like his too (I copied him/he should be flattered). Recipe is straight forward and I had no problems with it whatsoever (even though I was intimidated at first). Since I needed 9 oz, but the bittersweet chocolate bars came in 4-oz size bars, I bought 2 bittersweet and one sweet and used 1oz of the latter for my recipe. The bittersweet went perfectly with the cheesecake.

Reviewed On: Mar. 14, 2008

This is the first cake I made in 30 years. My cake's decoration was heavily inspired by The Italian Chef, another rater. The cake itself was fantastic - better than expected. It tasted great even though I am not a cheesecake fan (I made it for my husband's b-day.) No tears, no lumps, no grittiness. I followed all the tips mentioned by other rater, e.g. no overmixing, double aluminum foil + waterbath, 6-hr+ cooling off time, hot knifeblade to loosen around the edges and to cut in slices. In order to get the cake onto a pretty plate I placed a flat plate on top of cake (after taking the springform off) and flipped. Then I flipped it one more time onto a pretty plate. This was my mom's idea and it worked. I will make this cake again!

Reviewed On: Mar. 14, 2008