Baked Chocolate Cheesecake

Happy Diwali to all of you! 🙂 Celebrate, spread joy & be safe. I know that almost everyone make sweets on Diwali, but there is no choice left if your family demands something with chocolate for Diwali. This Chocolate Cheesecake was a quick choice to make and I’m delighted that I choose this over sweets. My family and I loved it! It was not only looked gorgeous, but tasted so delicious with chocolate on every bite, that we ate half of it on single sitting. So, if you’re planning to make something different for Diwali other than making sweets, go try it and don’t forget to share your experience with me. 

Baked Chocolate Cheesecake

Ingredients

For the base

• Oreo cookies- 9 (broken into pieces)
• Melted butter- 1 ½ tbsp

For the filling

• Cream cheese – Two 8 ounce packs/400 g (I used Britannia cream cheese)
• Brown or White caster sugar/Powdered sugar– ½ cup + 2 tbsp
• Unsweetened cocoa powder- 1½ tbsp
• Dark chocolate (I used Morde) – 175 g or 1 cup
• Eggs- 2 (at room temperature)
• Vanilla extract- 1 tsp

For the topping

• Amul Cream/Fresh cream- 6 tbsp
• Dark chocolate (I used Morde) – 50 g (broken into pieces)

Method

Making the base
Preheat the oven to 176 C. For the base grind oreo cookies and, butter using a mixer/grinder, until a fine mixture forms. Spread this mixture evenly on the base of your 7″ springform cake tin/loose bottomed cake tin. Bake for 10 minutes. Keep aside to cool completely.

Making the filling

Take a bowl; break the dark chocolate into small pieces. Melt the chocolate using a double boiler (read note). The melted chocolate will be little warm, let it be cooled completely. Or you can use microwave at 60% power for 1-2 minutes to melt the chocolate. Stop microwave in between to stir. Keep aside the melted chocolate for later use.

In a bowl add softened cream cheese, sugar and cocoa powder. Whisk well. In this add the eggs one by one. Add one at a time and keep whisking. Care should be taken not to over mix the batter. Add melted chocolate and vanilla extract. Whisk until a smooth mixture forms. Use an electronic hand mixer to get best result. Pour this filling over the cooled oreo base. Smooth the top. Keep the cheese cake pan on a larger baking tray/pan to catch if anything comes out during the time of baking. Bake for 48 minutes, or until the edges shrink a bit from the sides of the cake pan and the centre is still wobbling. After baking keep the cake pan onto a cooling rack and leave there until cool completely. No need to unmold now.

Shift in the fridge for minimum 4 hours or you can chill it overnight. Unmold before serving.

Method for topping

You can serve chocolate cheesecake without the ganache on top of course. But, I did some decoration because I liked it that way.

Add cream in a bowl. On low heat stir until hot, no need to boil the cream. Remove from heat, add dark chocolate pieces. Wait for 10 minutes. Mix and stir well, until a lump free ganache forms.

Take out the cake from fridge. Pour this ganache on the cake, spread with a palette knife. Keep it back in the fridge for one more hour before serving.

Note:

• Before I started all the ingredients were at room temperature.
• The top of the cake will shrink down a bit after cooling, and that is absolutely normal. Check out my before frosting Cheesecake picture.
• Double boiler is no fancy thing. It’s a bowl of hot water, with a lid on top. You need to place the bowl with chocolate pieces on top of the lid.
• This recipe can be easily doubled as per your need. But, baking time will vary for the same.