Decadent

cheesecake

Could this cake be made even more decadent? How about substituting dark chocolate for the white?

Well, that's an experiment for another lifetime, another budget.

You will need a 10" springform pan. Spray the bottom with non-stick cooking spray. (I use a non-stick pan but still spray, and it removes easily.)

Grind about 12+ shortbread cookies (you want a cup and a half) and an ounce of almonds. Add a T of sugar, mix with a t of almond extract, and stir in 3 T melted butter. It should be nice and moist.

Press the mix in the bottom of your springform pan, and bake at 350 for ten minutes. Lower your oven temp to 325.

In a double boiler, melt 6 oz. white baking chocolate, chopped fine. Let cool.

Beat the 4 packages 2/3 Philly cream cheese until they are creamy and smooth. Add 5 eggs, one at a time. Add 1 t vanilla, and 1/4 t almond extract. Beat in 3/4 cup sugar.

Add about a cup of the well-mixed filling to the melted chocolate, and stir. Add the chocolate mix to the filling, and stir to incorporate. Pour the filling over the crust and bake for about 40 minutes. The edges should be slightly browned and pulled away, but the center should shake slightly.

Cool. Cover tightly, and refrigerate overnight. (I only refrigerated for a few hours.)

The cheesecake will crack like mad unless you use a water bath. I didn't want the trouble. I left the cheesecake in the oven to cool, with the door ajar, and when I came home from my meeting, the cake had cracked and sunk in the center, too. Oh, well. Anything can be fixed!

To make the glaze to pour over the top, simmer 7 T heavy cream in a small, heavy saucepan ,then add 8 oz. finely chopped chocolate, and stir well.

cheesecake closeup

I fill my cheesecake cracks with this slowly when it's a little cool, then set it in the fridge awhile. Then I take it out and pour all the glass on top. If your cheesecake's flat, like it's supposed to be, some of the glaze will drip down the sides. That's a good thing.

Melt a small jar of raspberry jam (don't waste money on the expensive stuff; buy all-fruit, as the others are twice as much and full of high-fructose corn syrup and junk) in a small pot, then strain it into a bowl.

Toast some sliced almonds in a pan on the stove. Spread the jam around the edge of the cheesecake, and press in the almonds.

You can drizzle some jam on the top, too, and sprinkle with almonds. The actual recipe calls for this to be served with raspberry puree made from fresh or frozen raspberries, and you can throw some pretty fresh berries in the center.

You can't miss with the greatest cheesecake that ever lived.

Still, I wonder what a dark chocolate version would taste like. Don't you?

Omigod-ish

I called this cake Decadent when I posted the recipe in October of 2005. So what must it be now? Oh-My-God-ish?

Once you have the basics of cheesecake—and those would be four bricks of cream cheese, five eggs, and about a cup of sugar—you can pretty much make what you like. Add some jarred butterscotch topping, chocolate chips, jimmies. It's not too expensive to experiment.

I've made coconut, eggnog (killer), pumpkin-chocolate swirl, fruit, chocolate-orange, and dark chocolate, and I've made many of them without sugar. They are the easiest to doctor for the diabetic. (To adapt the following recipe, omit the crust or make it entirely with almond meal instead of cookies. Replace the all the sugar with 1/2 granular Splenda, 1/2 xylitol, available at health food stores. Use sugar-free candy, which you can find online or in some grocery stores.)

This cheesecake is the result of a dollar-store mistake—a bag of caramels bought to make candy apples the day before I decided to diet, which was the day before I decided I would make this cheesecake and couldn't be on a diet anyway. You follow, right? You're on a diet too. Tomorrow.

Here's what you'll need.

White Chocolate and Caramel Cream Cheese Pie (with Chocolate Ganache)

Crust

14 shortbread cookies OR chocolate wafers OR chocolate graham crackers
1/2 C almond meal or 1/4 C ground almonds
5 T melted butter
1 T sugar

Filling

4 bricks cream cheese (Philly ONLY, and I use 1/3 less fat; I'm delusional), at room temperature
5 eggs
3/4 C to 1 C sugar
1 T vanilla
small bag of caramels
1/2 bag white chocolate chips
2 T heavy whipping cream

Ganache

1/2 bag dark or milk chocolate chips
9 T heavy cream

Optional

sliced almonds
raspberry (or other) preserves
butterscotch
whatevah!

Equipment

10" springform pan
large pizza pan (for bain-marie)
heavy duty foil
double boilers


Instructions

1.) Preheat your oven to 350°. Spray the springform pan with PAM (c'mon, it's really the only non-stick cooking spray, isn't it?). Mix all the crust ingredients in a food processor, and press into the bottom of the pan, going up the sides ever so slightly just to cover that seam. Bake the crust for about ten minutes, then reduce your oven temperature to 325°.

2. Fill a pan larger than the springform about 2/3 with hot water, and place it in the oven. Wrap the springform pan in several layers of heavy-duty foil, making sure not to put a fold or a seam anywhere below the top rim of the pan; you don't want any water to seep between the foil and the pan, or it will destroy your dessert!

3. Beat the cream cheese until it's smooth.

4. Melt the caramels (after you unwrap each of the suckers, and after the hand cramps are manageable) with 2 T of whipping cream in a medium bowl in the microwave (follow instructions on the package).

5. Melt the white chocolate chips in a double boiler.

6. Add the eggs, one at a time, to the cream cheese, mixing until smooth.

7. Add the sugar, and mix thoroughly.

8. Add the vanilla.

9. Mix about half of the cream cheese in the double boiler with the melted chocolate, and mix well.

10. Pour the melted caramel in the other half of the cream cheese, and mix well.

11. Pour the white chocolate mixture over the crust, and then pour the caramel over the white chocolate mixture. Swirl it. (This involves putting in a knife or fork and swirling it around. It won't matter, though, because you're going to cover this baby with ganache. Still, the pretty swirl that comes out is like wearing lingerie. Sometimes only you have to know.)

12. Put the pan inside the pan of water in the oven, and bake for over an hour, maybe closer to two. Check it in forty minutes, then again in an hour, if the batter was still liquid.

13. When your cheesecake is finished, you will know; the edges will have rounded and pulled away, but the center will still wiggle a little. Don't cook it too long; you don't want it to be dry and crack.

14. When the cheesecake has cooled, run a knife inside the pan, and unhook it. You will need two plates to turn the cake over; one to turn it over so that you can lift off the bottom of the springform pan, and your serving plate, so you can flip it back.

15. Melt chocolate chips and cream in a heavy saucepan. Pour it over the cheesecake, and smooth with an offset spatula. Chill.

16. If you'd like, spread more of the chocolate—or use butterscotch or caramel or even preserves!—on the sides, and press sliced almonds all the way around.

This cheesecake, like all cheesecakes, tastes best after 24 hours. I don't know why.

And could we call this what it really is: cream cheese pie? It's a crust and a filling. It's not cake.