Hello everyone and welcome back for Week 24!
This week, we’ve moved into the Cheesecake Chapter! I’ve learned recently that cheesecake is a rather polarizing dessert – people either love it or hate it! I personally love a good cheesecake, but I normally like the chocolate-focused flavors, which is why this week’s bake interested me so much! This week I tackled the American Chocolate Ripple Cheesecake!
Now I’ve made cheesecakes in the past, but I’ve never tried any other flavor besides “plain” cheesecake. This recipe requires you to keep half of the batter as “plain” and the other half is, you guessed it, chocolate!
First and foremost, this recipe, like a few I’ve done in previous weeks, calls for a crust made of “plain digestive biscuits” and butter. Don’t you worry American friends or anyone who has no idea what these are. It’s just graham crackers. Whoever thought “digestive biscuits” sounded better than “graham crackers” was seriously mistaken.
If you’ve never made it before, graham cracker crust is really easy to make. Step 1: Put graham crackers into a Ziploc bag. Step 2: Unleash any stress demons from your body by beating the absolute CRAP out of the graham crackers with a rolling pin. Or, if you’ve had a decent week, you can just roll it out like a normal person. Then, just mix the crushed graham crackers with the melted butter and press into the bottom of the pan. Wallah! Graham cracker crust.
Like typical cheesecake recipes, this one required a springform pan for baking. Now if we journey back to Week 10 and the Great Springform Disaster of 2021, we know I haven’t had huge successes with springforms. However, I did buy new springform pans specifically for this chapter, so I crossed my fingers that they’d cooperate for me.
To start the recipe, you need “full-fat soft cheese,” which is just fancy talk for cream cheese. I left mine out to soften for about an hour before starting, because the first step is to whisk it with a mixer it until it’s soft and fluffy and this is just easier to do when it’s already a little soft. Then you add your sugar, egg, and vanilla extract one by one while mixing in between each.
While I was doing the step above, I melted the chocolate over a double boiler. The recipe technically calls for “plain chocolate (39 per cent cocoa solids),” but I just used semi-sweet chocolate chips. I’ve found that I like the taste of the chips better than any “cocoa solids” I’ve found. Not to mention the chips are usually much cheaper. I let the chocolate cool slightly before moving on.
The next step was to divide the cream cheese mixture in half (which I did by eyeballing it, as usual) and plop the “plain” half spoonful-by-spoonful into the pan on top of the crust. The recipe tells you to separate the spoonfuls, and I did my best. Then, mix the melted chocolate and the remaining cream cheese mixture to create the chocolate flavor. Repeat the spoonful method with the chocolate.
When I did my chocolate spoonfuls, I tried to fill in the cracks of the plain flavor, and I ended up using a spatula to smooth out the top of the pan. Then, I took a knife and swirled it around in the batter to (hopefully) create a marbled effect like the recipe says.
The listed bake time was “about 1 hour or until the cheesecake becomes puffy around the edges but is still very soft in the center.” I really don’t think I understood what this meant, because when I checked it after one hour, the edges seemed cooked but the middle wobbled more than a Weeble (if you know what I’m talking about, you now have no choice but to be my friend, haha). So, I put it back in for 5 minutes, then another 5, then admitted defeat after another 5.
Once you think it’s cooked, you’re supposed to turn the oven off, but leave the cheesecake in the oven to cool completely. This is something I’d only ever seen on Great British Baking Show, but apparently, I’ve been making mine wrong this whole time. In order to do this the “proper” way, make sure you have a LOT of time to wait. I swear this cheesecake would not cool down even if the fate of the world depended on it. It was finally cool enough for me to chill it in the fridge (as the recipe says to do) after probably 3ish hours. I honestly stopped paying attention to the time after the first hour passed and my attention span dwindled.
Because it took so long to cool, I ended up leaving it in the fridge overnight. Thankfully, my springform pan held up and we didn’t have any leakage issues – yay! The only disappointing thing was that the cheesecake did sink quite a bit while cooling. I’m not sure if I over-mixed the batter or if I just cooked it too long – either of which are highly probable.
Overall, I’d give this recipe a 3/5. It had a decent flavor, although admittedly too heavy on the cream cheese taste, and the recipe was relatively simple, albeit long. I’d definitely try to add more chocolate next time to hopefully balance out the strong cream cheese flavor, and I’d actually do a thicker crust as well. It did end up having a fun pattern on the inside; I wouldn’t call it “marbled,” but rather a color-blocking situation.
This would be a good bake if you had all day to prep for a dinner party, but if you’re on a time crunch, this is definitely not your friend. I had fun making it though, so yay for that!
That’s it for week 24, the American Chocolate Ripple Cheesecake! Thank you for following along with me, and, again, if you have any questions, feel free to use the “Get in Touch” feature on my “About Me” page and subscribe to get updates when I post!
See you next week!
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