For quite a few years, my go-to baking dish for almost any occasion was cupcakes. They are easy to make, and the flavor and decorating options are endless. And although I still love to bake a good batch of cupcakes, I have a feeling that my new go-to dish will be cheesecakes. After I baked quite a few cheesecakes for the Nespresso challenge, I now want to try out a bunch of different flavors and baking techniques. Dark chocolate, white chocolate, strawberry, a classic New York cheesecake, Baileys or lime…I could go on and on with all the different types of cheesecakes I want to try out.
This weekend I had a group of friends over for brunch and decided to make this chocolate and orange cheesecake. Unlike the Irish coffee cheesecake I baked for the Nespresso challenge , this is not a baked cheesecake. Instead its made with gelatine and egg yokes (remember to only use pasteurized when you don’t bake the cake). It is a rich and creamy cake with a lovely hint of orange. A cake perfect for a fall get together.
Serves 10-12 people
Ingredients:
200 g Bastogne biscuits
1 tbsp. cane sugar
100 g of melted butter
4 sheets of gelatine
2 dl whipping cream
4 pasteurized egg yolks
40 g of cane sugar
Seeds from 1 vanilla bean
400 g cream cheese
200 g dark chocolate melted, I used Valrhona – Caraibe 66 %
Zest from 1 orange
Method:
Crush the biscuits and add 1 tbsp of sugar. Add the melted butter and mix until you have a sandy texture. Press biscuit mixture into a 20 cm round springform pan lined with plastic wrap.
Soak the gelatine in cold water for about 5 minutes. Pour the cream into a pan and bring just to the boil, then take off the heat. Take the gelatine leaves out of the water, give them a good squeeze to get rid of excess water, and stir into the warm cream. Stir until it has melted into the cream.
Beat the egg yolks light and airy with sugar and vanilla seeds. Add the cream cheese and cream and whip it into a uniform mixture. Melt the chocolate, and fold into the cheese cream. Finally add zest from one orange. Pour the mixture on top of the biscuit base. Cover the cake and put in the refrigerator for at least 5 hours.
I decorated my cake with a bit of chopped pistachio nuts and candied orange peel.
