Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake from: Death by Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake
Rich baked cheesecake. Baking a cheesecake is a big project, but much easier if you do it in steps.
Ingredients
- 3 dozen Chocolate wafer cookies [or oreos]
- 6 Tbsp butter
Filling
- 32 oz cream cheese
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp grated lemon zest
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup sour cream
For the chocolate top
- 4 oz bittersweet chocolate
- ½ cup cream
- 1 Tbsp sugar
For the cherries:
- 1 cup frozen cherries
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 4 Tbsp cornstarch
- ½ tsp vanilla
- ½ tsp lemon juice
- ⅛ cup water
Instructions
- First, the crust: use a rolling pin to crush about 3 dozen chocolate wafers between two sheets of wax paper, reducing the wafers to fine crumbs. (You need about 2 cups of crumbs.)
- Melt 6 tablespoons of butter, add the melted butter to the crumbs in a bowl, and mix until all the crumbs are evenly moistened.
- Use your fingers to press the crumbs evenly into the bottom and about 1½ inches up the sides of a buttered 9" x 3" springform pan.
- Bake at 325 degrees for 10 minutes, remove the crust from the oven, and set it aside.
- Now turn the oven up to 375 degrees and put a shallow pan of water on the bottom shelf. This preheats and humidifies the oven so the cake doesn't dry out when it's baking.
- Next, make the filling
- Use a wooden spoon to cream together the cheese, sugar, and lemon zest.
- Beat in the vanilla, the eggs one at a time, and the sour cream.
- our the batter into the already-made crust in the springform pan and bake for about 1 3/4 hours at 375 degrees. (Leave the pan of water in the oven during baking.)
- Chill the baked cake overnight.
- Then slip a thin knife blade very carefully between the crust and the pan's side just to loosen it. Finally open the pan's latch and remove the side.
- For the chocolate top:
- Put 4 ounces of chopped bittersweet chocolate in a bowl.
- Heat ½ cup of cream with a tablespoon of sugar to a simmer stirring until the sugar dissolves.
- Pour the hot cream over the chocolate in the bowl, stir to dissolve the chocolate
- Let the mixture cool until it's the thickness you want, and pour/spread it over the top of the cake, allowing some to run down the sides.
- For the cherries:
- Mix the cornstarch with the sugar, add the cherries and stir, add the water and vanilla, and heat the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly.
- Then quickly turn the heat down to simmer, cook until thickened (this happens fast!), and taste it.
- Add a little more lemon juice or sugar if you wish.
- Group some of the cherries at the center of the cake top and distribute the rest evenly. Drizzle cherry syrup artistically.
- Finally shave bittersweet chocolate curls off a chunk of the stuff and sprinkle/arrange them generously on the cake.
- Take a moment to congratulate yourself on your achievement, and then Enjoy!