Homebrand MKR

My Kitchen Rules is currently one of the most popular weeknight night programs on television. The contestants are home cooks who must prepare different high quality meals each week in order to win a $100,000 dollar cash prize.

But for home cooks they seem to prepare very difficult meals with premium ingredients. I don’t know about you but I’ve never looked into my fridge and thought, “hmm… maybe just some pig’s jowls for dinner tonight”. But what happens if you make a premium recipe with basic cooking skills, homebrand ingredients and no msg? I aim to find out.

It was really difficult finding a recipe from the show that could be made with homebrand ingredients. I saw olive oil ice-cream and I shuddered.  But after careful consideration I decided on the dessert from the first episode of the current series, Apple Crumble Cheesecake with Stewed Rhubarb.

To get the homebrand ingredients at the best prices I went to Coles, Superbarn and Aldi. In total the ingredients cost $38.99. The only things that weren’t available as a homebrand options were the apples and the vanilla essence.

For the first step you have to peel, core and cut the apples, so you will have to invest in an apple corer unless you have the surgical cutting skills of Marvel’s Doctor Strange.

Tip: A really obvious hint is don’t forget to preheat the oven (like I did).

You will also need a food processor or blender and a spring form cake tin, to prepare the base of the cheesecake. For the filling, the recipe says you need an electric mixer with paddle attachments, but I used a $15 hand mixer with beater attachments and it turned out beautifully.

Step number six; “Refrigerate, covered, for several hours or overnight.” They waited until step six to mention that this cake needs to be refrigerated overnight.  I almost reported them to Gordon Ramsay.

This is definitely not a recipe for beginners and it was a pretty long and difficult process. I feel like a more accurate name for the show would be ‘My Kitchen is a Huge Mess After This Long Ridiculous Recipe That Clearly Isn’t Just For Home Cooks, Rules’.

Throughout the process I never had a problem with the quality of the ingredients, as they mixed and cooked very well with no crumbling or separating. Despite the harsh reviews on MKR, the cheesecake tasted fantastic and the ingredients tasted like premium ingredients. The crunch of the almonds in the crumble was an especially a nice addition to the cheesecake.

As well as the problems with step six, the recipe is very difficult to follow. You’re required to have a lot of assumed knowledge about different cooking processes. Having never cooked with rhubarb before, I found it challenging to know how to prepare and cook the rhubarb as the recipe didn’t have a lot of detail.  I also found that I needed more than 60ml of water to cook the Rhubarb.

The recipe requires you to own a food processor, electric mixer, apple corer, mixing spoons, plates, bowls, pots, a spring form pan and a baking tray.  If you don’t already own these items or some variation of them, then this recipe really isn’t worth the trouble. There is also a big mess after making the cheesecake that requires even more attention.

But even with buying homebrand ingredients, the recipes still aren’t very affordable. The recipe also requires you to own a lot of different kitchen equipment compared to a tub of ice cream.  But if you win the Sunrise Cash Cow and you love confusing recipes, then this is the meal for you

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