Chocolate Chip Cheesecake!

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

Deserts are possibly my favourite concoction to entice people to have a bite or two. I was recently invited to a family get together lately and I was thinking what best to make. I have done the chocolate cake and orange cake way too often so I figured cheesecake would be good. I couldn't find a disposable cake tin big enough so instead of making a huge one I made cupcakes instead. The recipe is 100% the same except that it was transferred into cup cake tins rather than a huge cake tin.

Ingredients:

600gms             soft cheese - I used Marks & Spensers housebrand

(3 packets)        but the normal version would be Philadelphia Cheese.

3/4 cup             caster suger

1 cup (284ml)   double cream - bitten till soft peaks form

1 1/2 cups        chocolate shavings

Crust:

1 1/2 tubes       chocolate biscuits - remove cream in centre to add to

                        cheese mixture and stick biscuits into blitzer to become

                        crumbs

50gms              melted butter

50gms              melted plain chocolate

Decoration:

A portion         of chocolate ganache

sprinkling         of chocolate shavings

Method:

1. Line the muffin tins with cupcake cups.
2. Remove cream in centre of chocolate biscuits and toss whole biscuits into food processor. Once biscuits are made into crumbs, add in melted butter and chocolate into crumbs. Fold in making sure mixture is equally spread. Scoop about 3/4 tbsp into each cupcake cup and compress them onto bottom of cupcake cups. Freeze them.
3. Beat double cream first and leave in fridge once soft peaks have formed.
4. For cheese mixture, beat soft cheese until they are smooth, then add in sugar and continue beating. When sugar and cheese are combined, add in cream from biscuits and chocolate shavings. Fold in the double cream and ensure all ingredients are combined.
5. Take out the muffin tins from the freezer and scoop cheese mixture into cupcake cups. Send them back to the freezer.
6. To prepare chocolate ganache, you can refer to my fellow baker, Kitchen Virgin at 27 for the recipe First Customer. I have another recipe for chocolate ganache which I will post up when I have the time. Chocolate shavings are very easy. Simply run your knife down the sides of your chocolate bar and voila, you have chocolate shavings.
7. Once cheesecake has formed or hardened, take out of freezer and let it sweat for a bit. Directly decorating it may not turn out as well as it should. After about an hour of sitting on the kitchen top, you can then experiment with your decorations. Below are two examples of what I did with the cheesecakes.

Now you have a perfectly sized cheesecake to serve per person. Be sure to remove the cups before serving.

Needless to say, the cheesecake mixture is just the basic mixture. You can take out the chocolate shavings and add in small cookies like the mini oreos or you can also add in the juice of a lemon to make it a lemon cheesecake. This would mean your biscuit base would change to digestive biscuits rather than chocolate ones but who cares. You can also add in alcohol to make it more appealing to the the alcoholic in you :)

I hope you had fun making it as did I. Always a favourite at parties. Now to start exploring making strawberry shortcakes!

Love,
The Innovative Baker.