This recipe is simply a dark chocolate cheesecake recipe garnished with raspberries. Two online sources are used to make this fantastic treat -- 1) www.cheesecakeislove.com for the crust and ganache and 2) Kraft website for the filling. It's fruity good!
Crust ingredients (source: Cheesecake is Love):
1 cup graham crackers
4 Oreo cookies (white centers removed)
¼ teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
½ tablespoon cocoa powder
6 tablespoons melted butter (3/4 of a stick)
Filling ingredients: (source: Krafts)
3 pkg. (8 oz. each) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 pkg. (4 oz. each) BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate, broken into pieces, melted, cooled
3 eggs
Ganache ingredients:
6 oz. bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
¼ teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon dark corn syrup
1 tablespoon Grand Marnier liqueur
1 bag of raspberries for garnishing
Making the Crust:
Preheat oven to 350 deg F.
Using a food processor, crumble the Graham Crackers and Oreo cookies. Add salt and sugar. Pulse the processor until there are no more big chunks.
In a small bowl, blend cocoa powder with 1 teaspoon of water until fully mixed. Add to food processor and continue to pulse. Then add melted butter and keep pulsing. Crust batter should be clumpy and not mushy.
In a 9-in springform pan, press the crust batter throughout the bottom and about 1/3 up the sides. Bake in oven for 7 minutes, then set aside to cool.
Making the Filling:
HEAT oven to 325°F.
MIX cookie crumbs and butter; press onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan. Bake 10 min.
BEAT cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with mixer until blended. Add chocolate; mix well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each just until blended. Pour over crust.
BAKE 45 to 55 min. or until center is almost set. Run knife around rim of pan to loosen cake; cool before removing rim. Refrigerate cheesecake 4 hours.
Making the Dark Chocolate Ganache:
Chop up the chocolate and place in a small mixing bowl. Slowly heat the heavy whipping cream in a small sauce pan until it just starts to boil around the edges. Immediately remove from heat and pour over the chocolate. Allow to sit for 5 minutes, and then thoroughly combine using a fork. Add the salt, dark corn syrup, and Grand Marnier, and thoroughly combine until smooth and a single color throughout. Pour mixture evenly over cheesecake. Quickly tilt cheesecake by hand to fill in any spots along the edge of the pan. Note that because cheesecake is cold, mixture will harden quickly. Once the ganache is cooled, place cheesecake back in refrigerator.
Before serving, garnish cheesecake with raspberries. Enjoy!
