Double Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

Once again I find myself blogging in a new house and baking in a new kitchen! Another new oven to contend with, new cupboards to reorganise and new feelings of annoyance when I come to use something and realise I’ve left it in the old house (measuring spoons!) Regardless, it’s been a great week and I’m loving my new abode. I’ve finally shaken off the housemates (the other half doesn’t count...he only ventures in to the kitchen to do the washing up!) and have doubled the size of my kitchen, something I decided to celebrate by making an unusually complicated recipe – for me anyway, you know I like to keep things simple!

After weeks of cakes and simple bakes, I decided that this week I wanted to make more of a pudding and settled on cheesecake with it being my favourite dessert of all time. I really not fussy when it comes to cheesecake, I will happily eat each and every flavour, baked or chilled. One of my favourites however has to be white chocolate cheesecake and having not made one for about a year, decided to give it a go. Any old white chocolate cheesecake however was not good enough and so, in order to make it super special, I decided to throw in a chocolate biscuit base and a raspberry topping.

Now I won’t lie to you, this recipe really is a pain to make. It’s a proper baked cheesecake with changes in oven temperatures, water-bath baking, oven cooling and overnight chilling. However, the fact that it’s one of the most delicious cheesecakes ever (if I do say so myself) makes it completely worth it! I promise, I would not put you through all this otherwise.

Furthermore, there are no short cuts with this recipe....trust me, I speak from messy, cheesecakey experience. It really, really does have to stay cooling in the oven for 2 hours and really does need to chill in the fridge overnight. Just stick with it! Remember the deliciousness.

Finally, apologies for the small number of photos this week. We’re currently waiting for our broadband to be connected and are surviving on a limited mobile broadband allowance which really needs to be saved for boring things like buying car insurance and paying bills. Rubbish.

Some final tips before you get started:

• I made this recipe without a blender, if you have one however your life will be much simpler than mine. You can blitz both the biscuits and the filling in a blender (separately of course) which will take seconds!
• If you haven’t cooked something in a water bath before, it’s very simple. Boil a kettle full of water, wrap the outside of your cake tin in a double layer of tin foil, pop it in a roasting dish before half filling the roasting dish with boiling water. Done!
• The uncooked filling is a very runny liquid, don’t freak out, it will work out fine.

Double Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

Ingredients

200g Chocolate Sandwich Biscuits (I used Oreos)

85g Butter (melted)

400g White Chocolate (chopped into small chunks)

300ml Double Cream

450g Cream Cheese (full fat)

4 Eggs

1tsp. Vanilla Extract

300g Fresh Raspberries

20cm Round Cake Tin

1)      Preheat the oven to 180◦C and lightly grease the cake tin. Crush the chocolate biscuits using either a blender or a rolling pin, until they resemble breadcrumbs. Combine with the melted butter before pressing firmly into the base of the tin. Bake for 10 minutes for leaving to cool completely. Reduce the oven temperature to 140◦C.

2)      While the biscuit base cools, place the chocolate chunks and the double cream in a saucepan and place over a low heat, stirring frequently until the chocolate has melted. Allowing the melted chocolate and cream to cool slightly, place the cream cheese, eggs and vanilla extract into a large bowl and mix until smooth and creamy (or blitz in a food processor). Add the melted chocolate mixture to the cream cheese mixture and combine.

3)      Wrap the outside of the cake tin in a double layer of tin foil. Pour the filling onto the biscuit base and place into a roasting tin. Half fill the roasting tin with just boiled water and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour.

4)      Once this hour is up, turn off the oven and slightly open the door. Leave the cheesecake in the oven, cooling for 2 hours. Once cooled, remove the cake tin from the water and roasting tin, top with raspberries and place in the fridge to chill overnight (at least 8 hours). Once chilled, remove the cheesecake from the tin and treat yourself to a huge slice...you definitely deserve it!