Saturday 1 January 2011

Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake

Hooray! I've baked a cheesecake which didn't crack as it cooled. I used the cheesecake mixture from this Gordon Ramsay recipe, although I made my own biscuit crumb base from 150g crushed HobNob biscuits and 60g unsalted butter, which I chilled instead of baking.

The cheesecake took 45 minutes to cook, but the difference might have been because I poured the mixture into a chilled tin, which wouldn't have happened if I'd baked the base, as in the original recipe. It still looked quite wobbly at that stage, but I often overcook cheesecakes, so decided to risk it and switch off the oven! It was the right decision - the cooled and chilled cheesecake had a really good texture - light and creamy without that mouth-gumming texture that some baked cheesecakes have.

As you can see from the photo, there wasn't much swirling of the chocolate - 75g  of melted chocolate almost covered the surface, and however much I tried I couldn't get it to swirl into the cheesecake mixture - it stayed stubbornly on the surface. It might have been better to mix the chocolate with some of the cheesecake mixture, but that would probably alter the texture of the cheesecake, which I wouldn't want to do. Perhaps the chocolate was still too warm and liquid - if it was cooler and thicker it might not have spread so far, and allowed a more swirly effect to be achieved.

7 comments:

Chele said...

I think it looks lovely and there is defo a swirl effect to it. I might need to steal the recipe, I've never baked a cheesecake yet that hasn't cracked as it cooled. This looks brill ;0)

Caroline said...

Looks delicious, and so pleased that you managed to get a cheesecake not to crack - I think I've only ever made baked cheesecake once, and that cracked if I remember correctly!

Choclette said...

Suelle, it looks lovely and swirly - nicely elegant. I've still never made a baked cheesecake, but one that isn't gummy sounds worth doing.

Anne said...

Mine have always cracked so glad to hear you had success with this one! I love hob-nob's, bet they made for a lovely base, will have to try next time I do a cheesecake! Looks delicious :)

Joanna said...

Well done! That looks delicious Suelle! Bet there's none left by now :)

Suelle said...

Correct, Joanna! :) It kept quite well for 4 days, although the base softened a little, as you might expect.

Alicia Foodycat said...

Yum! Baked cheesecake is probably my favourite dessert.