If your kitchen, like ours, is getting a bit crowded with everyone home, this is not going to help! We’ve turned to the top local chefs to offer up some easy recipes for those who want to hone their skills with the help of the pros.

If you’re finding a little extra time on your hands to hone your cooking skills or just making more of a priority of mealtime these days, we thought it might be nice to turn our unusually not so busy local chefs for some basic recipes using pantry essentials. If you’re keen to learn from a skilled chef or try your hand at some Chopped like action, this is for you! Introducing #ChefShares.

For our first installment of #ChefShares, we are turning to Emirates Palace’s Executive Pastry Chef François Leo. Chef Leo is a skilled chef with many years in the business, and he’s going to share with our readers his personal recipes for basic peanut butter and chocolate chip biscuits first then raspberry cheesecake if you’re feeling your inner Gordon Ramsey game is getting stronger!!

François says everyone and anyone can make his peanut butter biscuits. But, he also says to not be intimidated at all by cheesecake. “Many people think it’s hard to make, but it’s not at all, and it takes very few ingredients to whip up something divine!”

Turn on that A/C, because Chef Leo is about to turn up the heat in your kitchen!

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chip Biscuits

INGREDIENTS

120 g flour

1 teaspoon baking powder (4 g)

50 g butter at room temperature

30 g peanut butter

1 egg

1 tablespoon of milk

50 g brown sugar

30 – 40 g chocolate chips

8 – 10 pieces of dark chocolate

1 pinch of salt

INSTRUCTIONS

• Mix the both butter with the brown sugar until you get a smooth mixture.
• Add the egg, then the milk, and finally the flour, baking powder and salt.
• Add the chocolate chips and mix gently.
• Set aside in your fridge for one hour.
• After one hour, pre-heat your oven at 175 degrees.
• Make balls with the batter and put a piece of dark chocolate in the center.
• Set your cookie balls on a silicone mat or a baking paper. (Your biscuits are going to spread during baking, do not put them too close to each other)
• Bake in the oven for 12 to 14 minutes.
• Let them cool down before taking them off the mat.

Raspberry Cheese Cake

INGREDIENTS

Biscuit base

150 g sablé Breton (Breton biscuits)
50 g Elle & Vire brand all Purpose butter 82% fat

Cheesecake

130 g whipping cream 35% FAT
90 g white couverture chocolate
1 egg
145 g cream cheese
145 g fromage blanc 40% fat
40 g sugar
1 g fleur de sel

Presentation

2 tbsp raspberry jam
1 lime zest
125g fresh raspberry

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Biscuit base

Crush the biscuits and combine with the butter. Place a 20 cm diameter ring mold onto a baking sheet covered with baking parchment. Tip the biscuit mixture into the ring mold and, using the back of a spoon, press down to a thickness of 5 mm.

2. Cheese cake

Bring the cream to the boil, pour onto the couverture chocolate and whisk until smooth. Add the egg, cream cheese, fromage blanc, sugar and salt.

Stir until smooth and any lumps have disappeared but do not emulsify. Pour onto the biscuit base then bake in the oven at 120°C for 20 minutes (the cheesecake should have a slight wobble in the centre when it’s ready). Remove from the oven. Cool for 30 minutes at room temperature then refrigerate for one hour. Remove the ring mold and position on a cake board.

3. Presentation

Spread a thin layer of marmalade onto the cheesecake, Sprinkle over the fresh raspberry segments and finely grated lime. Garnish with mint leaves.