cheesecake – After Taste

Well, Happy New Year! I hope you’ve all had yourself a nice indulgent, and refreshing break. I admit I had intended to blog about this a little sooner but, you know…holidays happened. Hasn’t that sun been great?! Well, recently anyway 🙂

I found this recipe, by Donna Hay, in the New Zealand Herald last year. Despite regularly browsing the lifestyle (namely food) pages of our online newspapers, I was instantly drawn to the rest of her equally indulgent and mouth-watering recipes. You can check them out here

The dessert itself is not heavy at all, and melted in my mouth with a slight moussy texture. I found the sliced fruit (berries, mainly) helped complete the richness and also made it perfect for someone who doesn’t have quite a sweet tooth.

I enjoyed the smaller individual-sized portions which are great if you are making them for a small group of people. There wasn’t any leftovers laying around in the fridge to taunt me in the days following!

So, welcome back to After Taste for 2013 – you can expect all sorts of exciting and tasty recipes to surface in the coming months and in the year ahead.

See you all again soon!

Mini Baked Chocolate Cheesecakes
Serves 4

100 grams chocolate biscuits
30 grams butter, melted
2 tbsp ground almonds
400 grams cream cheese
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
150 grams milk chocolate, melted
Small amount of extra chocolate, for flaking on top
Berries, to serve

Preheat oven to 150 degrees. Place the biscuits, butter and ground almonds in the bowl of a small food processor and process until roughly chopped. Spoon the mixture into the base of 4 x 1 cup-capacity ovenproof dishes and press down using the back of a spoon.

Place the cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat until light and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until smooth and thick. Fold through the chocolate and spoon over the biscuit bases.

Place the dishes on a baking tray and bake for 20-25 minutes or until firm to touch. Allow to cool completely at room temperature before placing in the fridge for 2 hours.

Dust with roughly chopped chocolate flakes and top with berries of your choice. Enjoy.

This recipe is my entry in Sweet New Zealand for February 2013! Check out all the great recipes at Greedybread at the end of the month!

My favourite dessert is Cheesecake. Hands down.

In fact, there are several key (or so I’m told) desserts I haven’t ever tried because cheesecake, if an option, is my dessert of choice.

The hoarding of this recipe all started with a delightful slice of Kahlua and Mars Bar Cheesecake at Lone Star one evening. I have wanted to recreate it ever since, it was that good! After a google or three I couldn’t find a similar recipe anywhere. I did however come across a recipe for a Crunchie Bar Cheesecake. I used this recipe and swapped the Crunchies Bar for a lot of Mars Bar and a dash (or more) of Kahlua! I have been making my own Kahlua and Mars Bar Cheesecake for years now and have passed this recipe on time and time again.

There isn’t too much more to be said about this recipe except that it is absolutely mindblowingly DELICIOUS and you should all try it!

Kahlua and Mars Bar Cheesecake

1 x 250 gram packet plain sweet biscuits
150 grams of butter, melted
3 teaspoons of gelatine
1/4 cup water
375 grams of cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
1/2 cup of caster sugar
1 x 300 ml thickened cream
3 x 60 gram mars bars, chopped
4-5 capfuls of Kahlua

Grease a 24 cm springform tin (the deeper the tin the better!) and set aside. Process biscuits until crushed, add butter, process until just combined. Before you press biscuit mixture over the base I like to add 1/2 a cup of chocolate chips to the mix just to give the base a bit of flavour and texture. This is entirely optional! Press the base over the tin evenly, cover and refridgerate for approximately one hour.

Sprinkle gelatine over water in a cup. Stand cup in a pan of simmer water, stir until dissolved. Cool. Beat cream cheese, vanilla essence and sugar in a small bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Beat cream in a seperate bowl until soft peaks form
Stir in gelatine mixture into cheese mixture with Mars Bars, fold in cream and Kahlua.
Pour mixture over base in tin, Cover and refridgerate until set.

This cheesecake stands pretty great on its own but if you like, you could serve with a spoonful of natural yoghurt and a small handful of berries. I often crumble a Cadbury Flake bar (or similar) over the top just before serving. Enjoy!

I have decided to enter this into Sweet New Zealand. This month is hosted by Mairi at Toast. Head along to her blog and check out all the entries for November! Well worth it.