Daim, sweet Daim
Daim chocolate and cheese may not strike you as the most kosher of pairings but chocolate cheesecake exists right? Incidentally chocolate cheesecake is considered an abomination in the Johansen household, I mean why mess with sour cream and vanilla, why?!
*Feels a rant coming on*
Cheesecake should only ever be embellished with strawberries. Fact.
Anyway, before I demolish my carefully thought out exegesis on this Very Important Matter (VIM for future reference) let me explain that in the interests of scientific exploration into the umami of pairing chocolate and cheese I baked a Daim cake with Norwegian brown cheese.
*Pause for stunned silence*
Yes, really. I added Norway’s national cheese to this gluten-free Daim cake just to see what would happen. My Dad and I have long speculated that Freia melkesjokolade (milk chocolate to you non-Weegies) was once made with a smidgeon of brown cheese for that extra umami hit. Then Kraft bought Freia and well, melkesjokolade just don’t have quite that same depth of flavour now.
So this
VIM had been bothering me for some time and I figured since I had a block of brown cheese languishing in my fridge and a packet of
Daim chocolate balls from a recent IKEA raid I’d bake a Daim cake, reasoning that the savoury nature of Daim’s
krokan, or salted caramel with almonds, would marry well with the slightly savoury and sweet nature of fudgy brown cheese. This is the result: a Daim and brown cheese bombshell of a cake. It may not be red but it certainly has all the strut and sass of
Joan Harris.
You’ll never look at cheese and chocolate in the same way again 
Daim Cake:
- 75g brunost (Norwegian brown cheese)
- 75g milk chocolate with Daim
- 50g butter
- 3 eggs
- 200g ground almonds
- 200g icing sugar
- 2 tbsp cocoa
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
- 1 pack of Daim balls
- 100g Milka milk chocolate with Daim (or equivalent amount in chopped up Daim bar)
- 50g butter or coconut oil
- 1 tbsp cocoa
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 180 C. Lightly oil a 20cm round cake tin and set aside.Melt the milk chocolate, butter, brunost and cocoa in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan with simmering water until smooth. Allow to cool.In a medium bowl place the ground almonds, cocoa, baking powder and salt and stir thoroughly to distribute the ingredients. Whisk the eggs, icing sugar and vanilla until pale and fluffy.Carefully stir in the melted chocolate to the eggs, stir a couple of times and then add the dry ingredients. Using a large metal spoon fold through 6-8 times until the mixture looks even. Pour this into the prepared cake tin and place on the middle shelf of the oven.
Bake for 20-25 minutes until the top looks golden brown, feels firm to the touch and starts to separate from the sides of the cake tin.
Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Prepare the icing by melting the milk chocolate and butter together. Add the cocoa and vanilla. Using a skewer pierce the cake a dozen or so times and while the icing is still warm spread on the cake in two takes to allow the icing to sink into the cake where it’s been pierced. It will look messy, that’s the point. Sprinkle Daim balls over when you’re done spreading icing over the top of the cake.
Eat on its own, preferably whilst watching a marathon of Mad Men.
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For a supply of Daim and Norwegian Brown Cheese head down to the Scandi Kitchen on Great Titchfield Street, W1W 7PP, London. You can also find Daim Milka bars at Waitrose and Sainsbury’s.
sensational! i brought back geitost/brunost with me (it’s mostly gone now) but would never have thought of actually making a cheesecake with it. love the idea. shame i’ll have to wait till i go to norway again to stock up on the cheese.
Tusen takk Meeta, your trip to Norway looked so idyllic. Will make you the Daim cake when you come to London later this year
Love it, Sig!
Great post – made me chuckle. Also now dying to try the cake and try this mysterious umami warrior, brown cheese
Thanks Niamh, I’m telling you cheese and Daim…who would’ve thought?! Well, my dad apparently did…
love it, Sig! and i love how you pierce the cake to that it becomes all that more decadent. mmmmm….as for cheesecake with chocolate- blech from me, too. x shayma
Decadent is the word Shayma, this is not a cake for the faint-hearted
brown cheese??? does that mean really old cheeese? If so, I have some in my fridge you are welcome to take home. Sounds a very interesting combination, don’t know if I’d be brave enough to try it, though!
Brown cheese is not old cheese Sleuthie!! No, it’s merely a caramelised version of whey cheese, kinda fudgey but also savoury. Shall introduce it to you at our next Club Sandwich Friday
There is a Daim cake at IKEA and it’s absolutely awful. I love Daim so it’s a pity. I’m sure your recipe is great….has to be better than the IKEA version anyway!
Yes the store-dought version is dry and tasteless! That’s partly why I wanted a homemade version as I have something of an obsession with Daim at the moment
Now that’s what I call a cake!
brown cheese and chocolate you say? sounds like an utterly crazy yet brilliant combo – love it!
It’s all about the brown cheese and chocolate dude!
OMG, I love your writing and the article made me laugh out loud! I sure would have liked to have experience that extra umami hit
Great home cooking.
Thanks Damien, pleased you liked it. Yes who would have thought, cheese + chocolate = umami heaven
As a kid Dajm (swedish spelling) was my favorite candy bar, in Sweden you can get Dajm ice cream etc. etc. You can get Dajm today in Ikea but if not the closest it Heathbars.
I have a giveaway going on, don’t miss out, it ends 8/27 and it’s for all the wine enthusiasts.
http://delishhh.com/?p=1972
Thanks for your comment! IKEA is useful for random food supplies, one of them being the all essential Daim/Dime/Dajm
What? Brunost & Daim bars – a trip down food nostalgia lane – childhood Norway visits. This sounds too good to be true……