baby rambutan

one-&-only daughter’s request for her 17th birthday: something chocolatey, something cheesecakey, Ma!
cheesecake! i breathed a sigh of relief. after a rich black forest cake from the fancy schmancy cake shop for the baby brother, #2son,

who turned 12, and oodles of cupcakes for their joint family birthday party, cheesecake is easy breezy. i flipped through a couple of favorite cookbooks but ended up choosing something different from an untested recipe. i made up the crust with what i had on hand, and ended up with “my” new invention of an almond-coconut-crust, what i call my Almond Joy inspiration–one of my favorite chocolate bars when i first arrived in the good old U.S. of A.
break down the steps to making a cheesecake and it becomes gosh-durn-it-easy-as-pie.
recipe! plus cook’s notes…
chocolate cheesecake with “almond joy” crust, based on a recipe from Better Homes and Gardens’
New Baking Book, copyright 1998.
1 & 3/4 cups total of finely crushed vanilla/chocolate wafers, unsweetened flaked coconut, finely crushed toasted almonds (of roughly equal proportions)
1/3 cup butter, melted
4 ozs. semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 ounce unsweetened chocolate or semisweet chocolate, chopped
3 8-ounce packages cream cheese, at room temperature
1 & 1/4 cups sugar
2 tbsps. all-purpose flour
1 tsp.vanilla
4 eggs
1/4 cup whole milk

for crust: line a 9-inch springform pan with 2 layers of heavy duty aluminum foil. in a mixing bowl combine crushed wafers, coconut, crushed almonds and butter. press mixture evenly onto the bottom and 1 & 3/4 inches up the sides of an ungreased 9-inch spring form pan. chill crust while preparing filling.
for filling: in a small heavy sauce pan combine the semisweet and the unsweetened chocolate; melt over low heat, stirring occasionally. cool slightly.
in a large mixing bowl beat cream cheese, sugar, flour, and vanilla with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. with mixer running, slowly add melted chocolate, beating on low speed until combined. add eggs all at once. beat on low speed until just combined. stir in milk.
pour filling into crust-lined pan. place in a a slightly bigger baking pan in oven. set this over a bain marie (water bath, a pan with water that rises up to the level of the cheesecake) and bake in a 350°F oven for 45 to 50 minutes or until the center appears nearly set when gently shaken.
remove springform pan from the water bath.
cool in springform pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. loosen crust from sides of pan and cool for 30 minutes more.
remove sides of pan, cool 1 hour.
cover and chill at least 4 hours.

make sure ingredients are at room temperature: softened (NOT melted) cream cheese and butter makes for easy mixing and smooth batter.
from a famous Cooks’ resource, and from a wanna-be cook with enough cheesecake disasters to have learned her lesson: springform pans will leak, even with the double wrap foil! so when i read from Cooks’ Illustrated that putting the springform pan into another slightly larger regular pan, before putting into the water bath, ensures leak-free cheesecake baking, i was like, EUREKA! hip hip hurray!

my pretty baby. 17 years ago.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011 at 4:15 pm and is filed under chocolaterie, sweets for my sweets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.