Triple Chocolate Ricotta Cheesecake

Hubby and I love cheesecakes, seriously, who doesn’t? We are not having it very often considering our love handles are getting impossible to hide.  Yes, I’m talking about that flabs on the waistline.  This time, I’m blaming it on the magazine that he brought with an irresistible picture and a complicated recipe that is getting myself up to a challenge.  I love to challenge myself in my laboratory-that is my kitchen, using new ingredients that I haven’t used before and imagining its chemical reaction whether it will work or not… that gets my heart beats faster. Perhaps another way of working on my cardio instead of going to the gym. Grin :-),

Anyway, this recipe is taken from “Australian Gourmet Traveller” The latest edition of “Annual Cookbook, Our Favorite Recipes”.  I find the recipe complicated so I made it easier with some modifications and I was happy with the result. That prompted me to blog it otherwise, I’ll completely forget it after few months.

The original recipe is made with chocolate sable pastry as the base and served with hazelnuts in caramel, which I opted to skip.  For the base, I replaced it with Oreo biscuits because I was quite sure it will work, minimizing the time to do the pastry myself. Yes, I love shortcuts when it’s possible.

This is really easy to make, easier than the cheesecakes I’ve made before.  All I did was to bake the base and the rest of the mixture just sets in the fridge. The base, however, I realized there is no need to bake. I realized it too late.

A note to remember when making cheesecake: always start with ingredients at room temperature i.e. cheese, eggs, etc.

Here it goes…

Ingredients:

For the base:

Chocolate Oreo biscuits (without filling)

50 g. butter

For white chocolate ricotta filling:

250 g. white chocolate, finely chopped

500 g. spreadable ricotta cheese

For Dark Chocolate ricotta filling:

250 g. dark chocolate (at least 65% cocoa), finely chopped

500 g. ricotta

20 g. icing sugar

Top layer:

250 g. dark chocolate (at least 65% cocoa) finely chopped

150 pouring cream

2 egg yolks

30ml water

cocoa for dusting

note: original recipe requires 600 g. firm ricotta in each kind of filling, but I only found spreadable ricotta and in 250g/pack so I settled at 500g. each filling, it worked though.

Procedure:

1.     Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Grease 9 inch spring form pan.

2.     Make the base. Blitz the Oreo biscuits in a food processor until it becomes fine crumbs. Melt the butter and mix with the crumbs.  Press it onto the prepared pan and bake for 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and let it cool at room temperature.

3.     Make the white chocolate ricotta filling: melt the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water 2-3 minutes until completely melted. Process ricotta cheese in the food processor until smooth, add chocolate, process to combine. Spoon over the prepared base. Refrigerate until firm (about 30 minutes)

4.     Make the dark chocolate ricotta filling: Melt the dark chocolate on a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water 2-3 minutes until completely melted. Process ricotta cheese and icing sugar in the food processor until smooth.  Add melted dark chocolate and process further to combine. Spoon over the white chocolate ricotta filling. Chill in the fridge to firm (about 30 minutes)

5.     Make the topping: Combine dark chocolate and cream in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, stir occasionally until smooth (2-3 minutes).  Whisk yolks and 30 ml water in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes), fold in chocolate mixture and beat with an electric beater until thick and cooled to room temperature (6-8 minutes).  Spoon over the dark chocolate ricotta filling and refrigerate until set (2-3 hours). 

6.     Now take the challenge to remove it from pan.  Trace the sides and loosen the pan.  If you are not using a spring form pan, trace the sides and soak the bottom of the pan quickly hot water just to loosen the bottom, cover the cake with plastic and put a plate on top. Flip it quickly onto the plate (this time it’s the bottom up) use another plate and flip it again to have to right side up.  Remove the plastic. (The plastic is just to prevent the top later from sticking onto the plate when flipping over). Using a sift, dust cocoa over the cake.  Serve chilled.

I think it should this cake should be done the day before you need it or at least the night before so it stays in the fridge overnight.

I highly recommend it with coffee.  Just a small slice goes a long way.