Let’s just say I’ve been
getting teased a lot recently, due to my cooking so much, as it must be because
I’m “nesting.” Turns out some of my employees and colleagues want a miniature
Nikki running about terrorizing the world. I however am not anywhere near that
stage and give them a hard time right back.
As of yet though, everything I’ve
made and brought into my girls has been met with lots of praise and lots of
sharing of the recipes. Everyone always has something they think you should
try, once they find you adore anything food. I love it, and I’m in love with
creating something new!
Getting back to the topic of
Valentine’s Day and the special treat I made for our group of girls at work. As
it was not only Valentine’s Day, but also practically the entire departments
birthdays of 8 staff lie within November, December, January and February, we
decided a fun birthday lunch would be a great way to celebrate the staffs’
birthdays and also thank them for all of the hard work they do. I don’t thank
them enough, and they are Awesome!
I didn’t decide until last
week that I had found the perfect recipe for them, and I truly didn’t decide
until Friday the 10th that I wanted to create them this wonderful
White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cheesecake from Sweet Anna’s.
I’ll be honest her most recent blog sent me into a panic with her use of the “b” word. No no, she’s not using
expletives, she’s using that word that no woman ever wants to hear! Budget!
Ugh! I hate that word so much, but as an avid food lover, I cannot help but
feel I might be headed that way as well.
Back to the cheesecake…the
name of the recipe may be a mouthful, but the mouthful of cheesecake you have
at the end is truly delightful. I’m a huge cheesecake fan, and my honey went
shopping with me for ingredients, so a few items changed from Sweet Anna’s
recipe.
White Chocolate Raspberry
Truffle Cheesecake Recipe
Ingredients:
1 (10oz) package frozen raspberries
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 cup water
Oreos (I used leftover double stuffed, golden Oreos tops
or bottoms without the icing)
1/2 cup melted butter
2 cups chopped white chocolate (roughly)
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 (8oz each) packages cream cheese (1/3 less), softened
1/2 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 regular sized Hershey bars, milk or dark chocolate,
coarsely chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 cup chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
left over Raspberry Sauce
Directions:
Make the raspberry sauce: Stir
together the raspberries, sugar, cornstarch and water in a medium saucepan. Bring
to a boil, stirring occasionally, and boil 5 minutes. Pour through a
fine-mesh strainer into a small bowl and store in the fridge until you are
ready to make the cheesecake.
Make the crust: Preheat
the oven to 350ºF. Stir together the finely crushed Oreos and melted
butter in a medium bowl until well mixed. Press into the bottom of a
Springform pan and bake for 10-15 minutes, until the crust is set. Remove
from the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 325ºF and let the crust cool
while you prepare the filling.
(This
is where Nikki started getting creative, if you will. I very roughly beat the
tar out of those Oreos in their plastic baggy, mixed in the golden Oreo tops
and some additional tops. Double stuff Oreos were a temptation; I’ll admit I
ate one…ok two…but still. The mixture I came up with for my crust was really
quite lovely, the contrast of golden and black with tons of Oreo filling made a
lovely albeit thick crust.)
Make the filling: In
a medium saucepan, heat the half & half to almost simmering. Remove
from the heat and stir in the white chocolate until melted and smooth. Set
aside.
(note:
though the recipe says roughly chopped, don’t just chuck it in there and expect
it to melt perfectly, you’ve got to work with it constantly…also would have
helped had I followed the recipe and chopped my pieces down a bit more.)
In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese and
sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, making sure to blend
completely after each one. Beat in the vanilla, salt and the melted white
chocolate mixture.
Wrap the pan with the cooled crust in it tightly with
foil. Place the foil-wrapped pan in a roasting pan, and put a pot of
water on the stove to boil (you will be making a water-bath for the cheesecake
to bake in).
(My
first thought upon reading water-bath for a cheesecake, Holy crap…it’s a spring
form pan! That suckers going to leak that’s just the worst idea ever…sometimes
my brain reads but doesn’t comprehend recipes…obviously. This is a brilliant
idea, and honestly I’ll probably be doing this all the time now when using
spring form pans.)
Pour half of the filling over the crust. Sprinkle
with the chopped Hershey's bars. Drizzle 4-5 tablespoons of raspberry
sauce over the filling and chocolate bits and swirl with the tip of a knife. Pour
the rest of the filling on top of that, drizzle with another 4-5 tablespoons of
the raspberry sauce and swirl again with the knife.
(I will admit I had a hard time doing the
filling halfway, then sprinkling, drizzling, and swirling. Holy heck! I was
thinking to myself at this point. EPIC FLOP! It was only after I saw the second
round of drizzling that I realized just how gorgeous the top of the cheesecake
was going to be. I also realized how much extra raspberry sauce I had…)
Place the roasting pan into the oven and pour water into
the roasting pan to reach about halfway up the sides of the Springform pan. Bake
the cheesecake at 325ºF for 60-70 minutes, until the center is almost set.
(Yes
it will jiggle, yes I had a panic attack thinking it was too jiggle-y, this was
my first cheesecake…forgive me here, but I finally had the cheesecake cooled
down enough that I brought it into the room and showed my parents and said, “Is
this right?” Poor Mom and Dad they suffer through so much with my ignorance
sometimes)
Remove the roasting pan from the oven, let the
cheesecake sit in the hot water for another 30 minutes or so, and then remove
the Springform pan from the water onto a cooling rack to cool. Let the cheesecake
cool to room temperature and then place in the fridge to chill at least 3
hours.
The recipe calls for a lovely
ganache to be poured over the top of the cheesecake. I just couldn’t bring
myself to cover my pretty swirls on the top that I had worked so hard on
creating. I decided instead…I would follow the guidelines for the ganache but
make it my own. You can follow the original recipe below, or you can make a
drizzle…
Make the ganache: In
a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream just to a boil. Remove from the
heat and stir in the chocolate until smooth. Pour the ganache over the
top of the cooled cheesecake, smoothing with a spoon and allowing some of the
ganache to drip over the sides of the cheesecake. Return to the fridge to
chill an additional 3 hours or until the ganache is shiny and set.
Nikki’s take on a Raspberry
Chocolate Drizzle: In a
small saucepan, I also brought the heavy cream just to a boil, I added the
chopped chocolate and the remainder of my raspberry sauce and stirred it all up
until everything smelled heavenly raspberry and delicious. Save to the side in
a container and serve on the side.
The primary reason why I made
a drizzle instead of the ganache was beauty and appealing to the eyes. The
other reason is sometimes people don’t like a lot of chocolate. I like to have
some form of control in my eating experience when someone else makes something,
so the more I can control my chocolate levels on a cake the happier I am. Odd I
know, but that’s just me. Turns out this was a great idea as our lunch included
strawberries, which several of the ladies dipped their strawberries into my “drizzle”
chocolate for their own version of chocolate covered strawberries.
