Joe Moruzzi - Pleesecakes: 60 AWESOME No-bake Cheesecake Recipes

Published in 2018 by Quadrille,

an imprint of Hardie Grant Publishing

Quadrille

5254 Southwark Street

London SE1 1UN

quadrille.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders. The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Text Joe Moruzzi and Brendon Parry 2018

Photography Kris Kirkham 2018

Design Quadrille 2018

eISBN 978-1-78713-303-7

Publishing Director Sarah Lavelle

Project Editor Amy Christian

Art Direction and Design Claire Rochford

Photographer Kris Kirkham

Prop Stylist Louie Waller

Food Stylist Tamara Vos

Food Stylists Assistant Maddy Montagu-Andrews

Production Controller Tom Moore

Production Director Vincent Smith

Contents

Were two friends who went to school together then ended up crossing paths again in our early twenties. Joe was busy doing all types of graft, from landscaping to bar work. Brendon left school and just painted and painted away until one day Joe started working for Brendon with his first company (BrenDec). That went pear-shaped and PARMOR contractors was born. We ran that painting and decorating company together for three years - luxury homes and blocks of 40 apartments were our day-to-dayer!

We were foodies from birth: Brendan makes a banging homemade sausage roll and gives them out at Christmas instead of presents! And Joe was randomly making these cheesecakes. We knew that one day wed end up doing something with food in some way

Three years ago, Joes dad, known to many as Gian or Jon, attempted to make a cheesecake. Unbeknown to any of us he was amazingly not so great at it. Joe proceeded to have ago at it. Unbeknown to any of us, he was amazingly not so great at it!

It took a further two years to get to a stage where he felt people would pay their hard-earned wonga for one of his creations. He practised a lot, watched videos on Instagram and kept trying new ways and techniques to make the cheesecake look much more enticing than your boring, generic, baked New York style! He was on a mission to reinvent the cheesecake! Wend (Joes old dear) stepped in as sous chef and would be on call whenever he entered the kitchen! She has since stepped down, but Joe will be forever grateful. She has since moved on to bigger and better things - as the Pleesecakes delivery driver!

Rubbing down skirtings and rolling ceilings by day, putting pretty little raspberries and gold chocolates on cakes by night - that was the routine! Food was Joes passion, but cakes werent a geezer thing to do. People loved them though, and it was an obvious thing to pursue.

Enter Brendan (aka Brenchef/Brendec), business partner and double-keen foodie. He was a clear choice to help drive this hobby into something big (and Joe needed someone to wash up)! Plus, his knees were sore from rubbing down untold skirtings.

On 3 January 2017 the Pleesecake Instagram account was set up. We got a shout-out from Joe Wicks (The Body Coach) and boom - 10k followers in 24 hours! A business is born and Pleesecakes is abaatttt on the scene.

We met in a cafe in Epsom the following morning and realized we had to do something with this! So we set up a website and email. We had 50 orders within hours. We were looking at renting shops and kitchen spaces within two weeks of launch as we were still using Brendens two bedroom maisonette for the entire operation. It was a shock to us, as well as our wives, girlfriends, friends and family, who didnt know what was happening!

Since the birth of Pleesecakes there have been highs, lows, early mornings and late nights. A standard day would be a 12-hour shift, and a long day could be a dutty 20-hour shift. We didnt realize the amount of work and struggle that goes into growing a business. Yes, wed had experience from our previous business but scaling a business in an industry in which you have zero experience or expertise was a challenge to say the least! Making mistakes was a daily/hourly occurrence. We had to learn quick, REAL QUICK!

We hope that this book will inspire you. Chase your passion in life, because doing something for a large proportion of your time that youre not passionate about is a waste of life! Our main focus is on creating experiences and memories through making and eating good, healthy and indulgent food, specifically in the many different flavours, shapes and sizes of a cheesecake!

the KP

the master decorator/creator

Now get involved

Equipment

You dont really need any specialist equipment - we really wanted to make this book accessible. At the end of the day were just two painters who have found equipment along the way that is useful for us. When we first started out, we used to use an old plastic vitamin-C pot to press down the biscuit base into the tin! You can also use a cup or tumbler.

The standard sharing Pleesecake recipes in this book are made in springform cake tins (pans) of different sizes (below). These can be bought in any supermarket or cook shop.

The individual Pleesecakes are made in mini cheesecake moulds or a mini cheesecake tray with 12 compartments (see ). These are available to buy online. You can also get smaller mini cheesecake trays, which have 20 compartments. These are handy for making bitesize party Pleesecakes. Ring cutters in a range of different sizes can also be useful. A set of measuring cups are helpful for measuring out the biscuit base, and palette knives for smoothing out toppings.

You might have realized already that this is not your standard cheesecake book, and weve got recipes made in loaf tins, teacups, tumblers, martini glasses, champagne flutes and even shot glasses! So get creative and use whatever you fancy