Valentines Chocolate Cheesecake

So, I finally found a heart shaped springform pan, so I made a chocolate cheesecake for my family for Valentines.

Chocolate Fudge Cheesecake

Crust:
1 1/2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup butter

Cheesecake:
2 cups chocolate chips
3 bricks (250 g) cream cheese
1 can sweetened condensed milk
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 300. Mix together crust ingredients and press into a springform pan. Melt chocolate in double boiler or microwave (I find microwave is easier and works just fine with chocolate chips). Beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add in sweetened condensed milk and beat in until smooth. Add in chocolate, eggs and vanilla and beat until well blended. Pour into pan and bake for 55 minutes.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

I love this cheesecake recipe. It is super tasty, although its a little tricky. And it uses just about every bowl/pot in the house.

1 cup chocolate cookie crumbs (I used Biscoff cookie crumbs)
3 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup butter

300 gr (ish) frozen raspberries
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp corn starch
1/2 cup water

2 cups white chocolate chips
1/2 cup half and half cream

3 pkgs (250 gr) cream cheese
1/2 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 325. Grease a 9-inch springform pan.

Melt butter. Mix with sugar and cookie crumbs. Press mixture into the bottom of the pan.

Combine raspberries, 2 tbsp sugar, corn starch and water in a medium pot. Bring to a boil and then continue boiling until thickened. Strain mixture through a mesh strainer to get out the seeds.

In a double boiler, or (carefully) in the microwave, melt chocolate chips together with half and half until smooth.

Beat together 1/2 cup sugar with cream cheese. When this is fluffy, start beating in the eggs one at a time. Blend in the vanilla and white chocolate mixture.

Pour about half the batter over top of the crust. Spoon a few tablespoons of the raspberry mixture over the cheese goo. Pour in the rest of the batter. Spoon another few tablespoons on top. Run the tip of a knife through the batter, just a little, to create a marbled effect.

Bake for 55-60 minutes, using whichever method you prefer to prevent cracks. Cool, then refrigerate at least 8 hours. Serve with white chocolate curls, fresh raspberries and remaining raspberry sauce.


This recipe was what really convinced me that I want a stand mixer. I beat the cream cheese and the sugar in our food processor, which made life so much easier than usual. However, when I added all the other ingredients it kind of overflowed the food processor. (Our food processor has a hole in the middle where the blade attaches, I filled it up too far and overflowed it through the middle) Which made me decide that I should get a real stand mixer.

Mini Cheesecakes!

I love cheesecake! They are fairly tricky to bake because they tend to crack, they are very rich and not something you make on a regular basis. But a few months ago I discovered this recipe for mini cheesecakes and I was really excited to try it out.

Cheesecake

Its super simple, so long as you can count to 2. :)

2 bricks of cream cheese (softened)
2/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

Crust
This is my new favourite cheesecake crust recipe, courtesy of Bakerella.

3/4 cup Biscoff* cookie crumbs (or regular graham cracker crumbs)
3 tbsp melted butter

Topping
Your favourite fruit
Your favourite corresponding jam or syrup

* Biscoff cookies make an AMAZING cheesecake crust. But they are a little hard to find in Canada, although I've discovered that London Drugs stocks them but I haven't found anywhere else that does. If you can't find them, just use graham cracker crumbs or chocolate cookie crumbs, or whichever kind of cookie crumbs you like.

Prep: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line prepare about 18 muffin cups.
Crust: Take your cookies and put them in a food processor. Run until the cookies have become fine cookie crumbs. Add melted butter. Stir until all the cookie crumbs are well coated. Press crumb mixture into bottom of muffin cups.
Cheesecake: Beat cream cheese on its own until it looks whipped. Add sugar, beat some more. Add eggs and vanilla beat, until smooth. Spoon batter into muffin cups until each cup is almost full. Bake for about 15-20 minutes.
Topping: When cheesecake has cooled microwave the jam just a little so that it is just a little more liquid-y. Then top each cheesecake with fruit and spoon jam over top.

I love, love, love this recipe. It makes the perfect size of cheesecakes for a dessert. Also, it looks really elegant, and if you serve them at a party or something people will think you spent a lot of time on them. :) In fact, they are so elegant, that a few weeks after I tried the recipe for the first time, I ended up making over 100 of them for a semi-formal Christmas banquet.Unfortunately, I was a little busy helping run the banquet, so I didn't manage to get a really good picture of all of the mini-cheesecakes. But it was pretty crazy. Also, note the cute little Christmas-y muffin cups, I really loved those.

One of the other reasons I love this recipe so much is because its so flexible. You can experiment with toppings (for the banquet, one of the toppings was pecans and caramel sauce, those ones disappeared pretty fast) or with crusts (like chocolate crumbs!) or you could even try playing with the filling, such as adding chocolate or raspberry sauce.

Oreo Cheesecake

So I got this cookbook for my birthday and its really neat. It's called America's Most Wanted Recipes and it has all these recipes in it that are 'clones' of restaurant recipes. Pretty much, the author experimented until he had recipes that taste almost the same as the ones in the recipes. Now, as the title suggests they come from mostly American restaurants, some of which I have never heard of, but overall it seems like a really great recipe book.

The first recipe from it that I tried is 'The Cheesecake Factory"s Oreo Cheesecake. Now, again, being not an American the only reason I've heard of 'The Cheesecake Factory' is because its the place where Penny on Big Bang Theory works. So, I've never had the original of this recipe and so I can't exactly compare it.

"The Cheesecake Factory" Oreo Cheesecake

2 tbsp melted butter (or margarine)
1 1/2 cups Oreo cookie crumbs

3 pkgs cream cheese
1 cup sugar
5 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup flour
1 cup sour cream
5-10 chopped Oreo Cookies (for filling)
5-10 more chopped Oreo Cookies (for topping)

Allow all ingredients to come to room temperature (I didn't do this, although I did soften the cream cheese in the microwave as instructed on the package) Preheat oven to 325. Mix melted butter and Oreo crumbs and press into the bottom and partially up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan, set aside. Using an electric mixer beat cream cheese until fluffy. Beat in sugar, slowly. Beat in eggs, one at a time until combined. Add the salt, flour and vanilla. Beat until well blended. Add sour cream, beat well. Stir in the filling Oreos by hand. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Top with topping Oreos. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Use whichever cheesecake crack prevention methods you prefer. I have tried several different methods (water bath, leaving the oven door open for an hour afterwards, running knife around rim, doing nothing special and just letting it do its own thing) and I really haven't found a method I prefer, so whatever you usually do with cheesecakes, just do that. :)

I really liked this recipe, although I overcooked it a bit. It was really tasty and had that nice combination of soft and crunch. It even survived a 6 hour, 500km, road trip to my Grandmother's all nicely wrapped up in Saran and newspaper with an icepack attached. It was pretty great, now I can't compare it to the original, so the jury's still out on that. But I do think I will be trying other recipes from this book soon.

But! Even sooner that that I am going to be sharing a post with you that is so filled with awesome that your win-o-meter will be blown off the charts! I don't want to give any hints if you don't already know what's coming but make sure you tune in next week sometime for the most epic post you have seen on this blog so far. :D

Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake

So this is the last Facebook transfer post left! Yay! Or at least until Christmas. Anyway, saving the best for last of course, this was the birthday cake I made for myself this year. Originally posted on Facebook May 5, 2009

This past Saturday was my 20th birthday and for it I baked my own cake. No, I didn't want someone else to bake one for me, I wanted to bake my own to share with my friends. Although, one of my friends was nice enough to bring brownies to my party, which were amazing and I must have the recipe. Anyway, back to the topic. I made myself (and my friends) a Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake and since so many have asked for the recipe, I knew I had to post it. Although I would have posted anyway.

Chocolate Turtle Cheesecake
from the inside of the Philly Cream Cheese box

1 1/4 cups finely chopped pecans (I think I used a bit more)
2 tbsp butter, melted
2 tbsp sugar
3/4 cup sugar
32 caramels, unwrapped (this is the hardest part of the whole recipe)
3 tbsp milk
3 pkgs (250g each) brick cream cheese, softened
3 eggs
8 oz semi sweet chocolate squares (one package if you use Bakers') melted and cooled slightly

Preheat oven to 350. Cover bottom of 9 inch springform pan with parchment paper. Combined chopped pecans, butter and 2 tbsp sugar. Press firmly into pan.
Microwave caramels and milk in 1 min intervals, stirring between each until melted and wel mixed. Spread over crust to within 1 inch of edge. Beat cream cheese and 3/4 cup sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer. Add eggs, 1 at a time. Stir in melted chocolate. Pour mixture over cooled caramel layer. Bake for 45-50 min. Run knife around rim of pan to loosen cake, cool completely. Refrigerate 3 hours or overnight.

I also decorated mine with pecan halves in a circle around the edge and my own caramel glaze.
15 Caramels
2 tsp milk
2 tsp butter

Microwave together in 30 s increments, stirring after each until well melted and blended. Allow to cool slightly and then drizzle over cake.

My mom declared this to be the tastiest thing I've ever made. It was very rich and heavy and I think next time I would try making it in a larger springform pan so that it makes more and is less heavy for each piece. Still it was amazing! I will definitely make this again, possibly for my mom's birthday. Or if someone else's birthday is sooner and they request it!

Cheesecake Brownies and My Famous Oatmeal Cookies

Originally posted on Facebook May 11, 2009

Cheesecake Brownies

3/4 cup cocoa
1 cup butter or margarine
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup softened cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp flour

Preheat oven to 350. Melt together butter and cocoa. Whisk into a bowl with sugar, eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder, and salt. Pour half into a 8x8 pan lined with parchment paper. In another bowl cream together cream cheese and sugar. Beat in egg, vanilla and flour. Pour oven bottom brownie layer. Drop in the rest of the brownie goo and swirl with a knife or fork. Bake for 35 min. Let cool, refrigerate for 4-8 hours, or more. Cut into squares.

Mmmm, cheesecake and brownie together....

Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 cup butter
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp milk
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 cups rolled oats
2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Cream together sugars and butter. Stir in eggs, vanilla and milk. Add in flour, soda and powder. Mix in rolled oats. Mix in chocolate chips and stir until well blended. Bake for 10 min.

This is the traditional recipe I've been making for years. And I forgot to take a picture, but chances are most people I know have had them once before. EDIT: Picture now added.