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You know those people that go to the grocery store and grab a bunch of stuff that they don’t need because it’s on sale? Well, guilty as charged. In particular, I grab ingredients that might come in handy for baking. I can’t help myself. It goes into my shopping cart as I imagine all of the delicious things that I might be able to do with it.
And then, time passes. Perhaps I am working longer hours. Perhaps I reached a phase in the dieting where I just don’t want to sabotage myself. Or, maybe it’s a 3-week long bout of bronchitis that left me with about as much desire to go into the kitchen as I have run 10 miles in a Miami summer afternoon. The point is, I don’t get around to it for a while. And then, I find myself opening my refrigerator and finding out that there are a bunch of ingredients that I need to use pretty much immediately, or they will go bad.
So, here I was, staring at several packs of cream cheese, a quart of half and half, some Oreos, and less than a cup of heavy cream that were reaching the end of their lifespan. Cheesecake came to mind, which would use up everything but the half and half. I’ll make flan with that (which I will cover in a future post). I decided on the chocolate cappuccino cheesecake because I thought that plain cheesecake with an Oreo crust would not do it justice. Plus, I also happened to have a lot of semisweet chocolate that I didn’t know what to do with.
The original recipe for Chocolate Cappuccino Cheesecake can be found at http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Cappuccino-Cheesecake/Detail.aspx, but here is my modified recipe.
Chocolate Cappuccino Cheesecake
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups crushed Oreos
2 tbsp melted butter
3 8oz packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup white sugar
3 eggs
8 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp instant coffee granules, dissolved in 1/4 cup hot water
1/4 cup coffee liqueur
2 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch round springform pan. I also lay a parchment paper circle on the bottom
- Combine the Oreos and the butter until well blended and the crumbs hold together loosely. Press onto the bottom of the springform pan, then bake for 8-10 mins. Set aside to cool.
- Beat the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of your electric mixer until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Melt the chocolate with the heavy cream over a double boiler. Alternately, you can melt it in the microwave, if you have a microwave-safe bowl. Make sure you don’t microwave the chocolate for more than 15 or 20 second intervals, stirring after each round, until the chocolate is smooth.
- Add the chocolate mixture to the cream cheese and beat until well blended. Add the salt, coffee, coffee liqueur, and vanilla. Beat until blended, but do not overbeat.
- Pour the batter into the springform pan with the prepared crust. Wrap the springform pan in aluminum foil and place in a roasting pan in the center rack of your preheated oven. Add hot water until it reaches to about 1-inch up the side of the pan.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, or until center is almost set. I had to bake mine for an extra half hour or so.
- Once the center of the cheesecake is almost set, turn the oven off, but leave the cheesecake in there for at least another hour. This helps prevent cracks and complete the cooking process.
- Allow cheesecake to cool completely, then refrigerate for at least 12 hours before serving.
To unmold the cheesecake, I removed the sides of the pan and popped the cheesecake in the freezer for about an hour so that it could get firm. Then, I took my cake lifter (use a big spatula if you don’t have one) to carefully remove the cheesecake from the bottom of the pan and move it onto the serving plate (or, in this case, the cardboard cake circle). The parchment lining on the bottom really helps!
After your cheesecake is ready to serve, you can leave it as is:
Or jazz it up with some whipped cream, chocolate drizzle, or anything else you’d like!
Yummy!