CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE RECIPE
Total prep time:25 minutes
Total cook time: 45 minutes
Makes about: 12 servings
Do you love chocolate and cheesecake? What about those two incredible delicious flavors combined together? If you answered yes, here is a simple and easy to follow Chocolate Cheesecake recipe to guarantee you cheesecake success. You may think cheesecake is a hard recipe to bake, but in reality it’s quite easy when you are given an easy to follow ingredient and direction check list. Before you know it, you will have made yourself an unbelievably delicious cheesecake that will make you want to dig in as soon as it comes out of the oven, maybe even before that. Patience is everything though. If you are patient enough, the end product will have been well worth the wait.
Equipment needed:
-Mixer
-Measuring cup
-One greased 9 inch round pie or springform pan
-3 mixing bowls
-1 pan to place over stove top
Ingredients needed for CRUST:
-1/2 cup of sugar
-6 tablespoons of melted butter (used to incorporate and bind all of the crust ingredients)
-1/4 of a cup of baking cocoa
-1-1/4 cups of graham cracker crumbs
Ingredients needed for FILLING:
-3/4 of a cup of sugar
-3 eggs (make sure eggs are fresh out of the fridge to make sure they stay chilled)
-1 cup or 6 ounces of melted semi-sweet chocolate chips (Hershey’s chocolate is always a good choice)
-3 packages of softened cream cheese (at room temperature)
-1 teaspoon of good vanilla extract
-1 teaspoon of good coffee (adding a small amount of coffee brings out the flavor of the chocolate)
Ingredients needed for the TOPPING (Ganache):
-1/4 of a cup of semisweet chocolate chips (Hershey chocolate)
-1/3 of a cup of a good heavy whipping cream
-1 tablespoon of honey (honey always adds a little bit of extra sweetness to any recipe)
DIRECTIONS:
To start, you can go ahead and preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
-In a large bowl, combine your sugar, cocoa and graham cracker crumbs. Once combined, stir in the melted butter until crumbs form. Gently press onto the bottom of a greased (with butter) pie pan and set aside.
-In a smaller mixing bowl, combine cream cheese and sugar together until smooth with a mixer. Then, add eggs in one at a time on your mixers lowest speed until combined. Next, stir in melted chocolate and vanilla extract until blended and then poor into graham cracker crust.
-Bake at 350 degrees for around 45minutes. Some ovens cook faster than most so keep an eye out when it gets around that time. You will know it is ready when the center of the cheesecake is almost set. Cool on a wire rack for exactly 10 minutes. You can then carefully run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the cheesecake. Place cheesecake in refrigerator for 1 hour until it has completely cooled.
To Finish:
-In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the toppings for the cheesecake (chocolate chips, whipping cream and honey). Stir until completely smooth. Then, remove saucepan from heat. Let cool for 5 minutes. You can then pour the topping over the cheesecake.
Here comes the hard part:
Chill the cheesecake for up to 4 hours or until the topping has had a chance to completely set. Once the cheesecake has chilled and is ready to be devoured, it should look like a tiny piece of chocolate heaven.
Congratulations, you have just successfully baked yourself a delicious chocolate cheesecake. Enjoy!!