Thanksgiving Test Drive #3: Chocolate Cheesecake

I sent out a list of proposed Thanksgiving desserts to the family about a week ago.  I had, inadvertently, neglected to include anything of a chocolaty nature.  This is heresy at any festive meal at which my mother will be present.

Cheesecake was on the list, because Hockey Fan loves it.

Hockey Fan loves cheesecake.  Mom loves chocolate.

Chocolate.  Cheesecake.  Together.  Yum.

Right?

There are a million recipes, but Nigella Lawson is particularly proficient at rich desserts, so I chose one of hers:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/nigella-lawson/chocolate-cheesecake-recipe/index.html

I decided to use ginger snaps for the crust rather than graham crackers because, well, while I was food shopping this morning, my eyes drifted to a container of ginger snaps and I thought, “yum.”  Also, I’ve become a fan of the spice-combined-with-chocolate trend (still on the fence about the bacon chocolate, but saffron/cardamom chocolate is amazing) and I figured ginger and chocolate would be a good combination.  I also figured that if it turned out badly, I could blame Tiny Hockey Fan for giving me a ginger snap craving at the wrong moment.

Before pouring the batter into the spring-form pan, I decided to line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper because, previously, I’ve been unable to completely de-pan my cheesecakes for attractive display; the crust always gets stuck to the pan’s base and the cake goes on my pretty, crystal cake stand adhered to a metal disc.  I was hoping that the parchment paper would allow me to slide the cheesecake off of the base without cracking the cake and, if I couldn’t remove the paper fully, I would be able to trim it down so that it wouldn’t be visible on the cake stand.

I omitted the cocoa from the crust because I thought that, between the cake and the sauce, there was plenty of chocolate to be had, even by my mom’s standards.  The crust turned out a bit greasy for my taste (though it did, with the help of the parchment paper, slide right off of the pan’s base when it was time) and initially, I couldn’t figure out why, as I had used exactly the amount of butter called for by the recipe.  The reason for the grease becomes apparent when one compares a recipe for ginger snaps to a recipe for graham crackers, however:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/ginger-snaps-recipe/index.html

vs.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/graham-crackers-recipe/index.html

There is almost twice as much butter in ginger snaps as there are in graham crackers.  Thus, one might logically conclude that one should cut down the amount of butter to be used in a crust recipe if one is substituting ginger snaps for graham crackers.

Lesson learned.

The cake itself is a pretty standard cheesecake.  If you throw everything in the mixer and combine it well, it usually comes out just fine.  This one did.

Now for the fun part:

The recipe calls for wrapping your spring-form pan in “cling film” and then in foil because this cheesecake cooks, like a custard, in a water bath and spring-form pans consist of two separate pieces, that, while held together tightly when the ring portion is locked shut, still provide a crack through which water might leak.  For those of you who don’t speak British (the recipe author is from the UK): “cling film” = plastic wrap.  I considered the instructions for a moment and then thought, “there is no way plastic wrap can go in the oven at 450 degrees for an hour and not melt.”  So I wrapped the cake in two layers of foil and put it into the water bath.

When I unwrapped the cake, water poured out of the foil and the cake itself, while intact, had definitely taken a bath.  Granted, it hadn’t set fully yet when I tasted it, but the cake was definitely soggy.  The flavor was lovely, but the consistency was similar to that of a sea sponge (not that I’ve eaten sea sponge, but it was the consistency I imagine a sea sponge would have if you popped it in your mouth).

I did some research of plastic wrap in the oven.  Here is what I found:

http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/647482

So, apparently, there is a heavy duty plastic wrap that can go in the oven, however, the recipe does not specify heavy duty “cling film” and I think that the flimsy crap I get at Costco would probably turn into plastic soup, ruining my spring-form pan, my roasting pan (used for water bath containment), and my lovely cheesecake.  Which of the chowhound options to choose to prevent this multiple catastrophe?  Not sure yet, but baking without the water bath seems like a good option, or perhaps lining the entire inside of the pan with parchment, rather than just the bottom (though any separation in the parchment strips would provide potential entry points for errant water).

Maybe next time, I’ll use a bourbon bath instead of a water bath.  Think of the flavor that would impart…

The chocolate sauce was a total failure.  I actually think, in this case, however, that it was the recipe and not me.  I don’t know if something was lost in translation or if there was a misprint, but there was far too much liquid in proportion to the chocolate.  It’s supposed to be a thick sauce, and even with the corn syrup, there was no way that it was ever going to be anything except chocolate milk.  I think next time, I’ll use a double boiler and add the dairy a tablespoon or so at a time, and skip the corn syrup all together.  Ganache will work just as well as sauce.

Conclusions:

1) glad I did the test drive

2) technique is still in limbo and there is some experimenting yet to be done

3) cheesecake is both a little time consuming and a bit expensive to make and so, this one probably won’t be test driven a second time.  This means that I will have to break the cardinal rule yet again and there will be some test driving to be done when the big day arrives… DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!