Anyhow, back to the cheesecake :) we thought that the amazingness of White Russians would go very well with the whole idea of a baked cheesecake, so last weekend I finally got around to giving the idea a go....same recipe as the Margarita Cheesecake but instead of the lime juice and the Cointreau I added 4 shots of Kahlua and instead of the cornflour I used 2 tbsp of Dr. Oetker Chocolate Pudding powder (the best stuff in the world...like ever!!! if you have friends living/going to Germany or Austria get them to buy you some!) and 2 tbsp of normal custard powder.
It worked well...and turned out ok...especially on the second day but it's not quite there yet....it's missing the amazingness of a White Russian (so there will be a second round of that one). I think adding some whipped cream and some instant coffee might do the job...
Having attempted the White Russian-ness I was stuck trying to make a cake for our departmental fundraising coffee morning...the whole coffee-flavour thing hadn't been too bad but I wanted a more indulgent cake than the decidedly puritan product the day before - one late-night baking session later I had an 18cm tin of turkish coffee amazingness in front of me....Turkish Coffee Cheesecake
I used 1/2 of the margarita cheesecake recipe which left me with lots of leftover filling and some leftover pastry.
Put the filling into ramekins and make mini-cheesecakes for desert the next day.
Instead of sticking the dough into the fridge by itself i put it into a loose-bottomed tin and put the whole tin into the fridge. Thinking about it, one of those aluminium pie dishes for thanksgiving would probably be the best size - they're deeper than my tin so they would probably hold the whole filling without having to bother with the mini-cheesecakes.
Once the pastry was in the fridge I was ready for the exciting stuff.
Make a ganache with:
100g of really good chocolate
1/2 cup of double cream&
1 tbsp of butter (heated up together)
some booze....I put rum in
some syrup if you fancy
Melt the chocolate by pouring the cream and butter mix over it , leave it for about 5 minutes, and then stir it until the chocolate bits are dissolved...then you add the rum if you're putting any in....I only had 80% chocolate which I was worried would be a bit too intense for the cake so I added some golden syrup to make things a bit sweeter.
Let the chocolate mixture cool down for a bit (I put it into the freezer for a few minutes) and then spread about 3/4 of the mixture onto the pastry (this means you have lots of leftover chocolate-amazingness which you obviously have to eat....or make some truffles if you have the energy...I didn't....)
Ok...back to the cheesecake-ness as I said - half the margarita recipe with some extra butter....I used a tbsp more butter than I would have otherwise and then you add
2 shots of of Kahlua into which you mix
2 tsp coffee granules (tiny bit of hot water made them dissolve in the booze)
1tsp cinnamon (though I'm tempted to say that 2 might work even better)
If you're not freaked out by raw eggs like I am try the batter to figure out whether it needs some more sugar. I felt it was fine without any added sugar.
And then the mixture goes on top of the chocolate in the tin (be generous but keep in mind that the thing is gonna rise - so leave some space at the top unless you like cleaning your oven)
In my oven it took about 30 minutes but just look at it and keep testing with a skewer.
