White Chocolate Cheesecake Day: Celebrate

Today is White Chocolate Cheesecake Day, and I just got a new cheesecake spring pan at the Oakland Museum White Elephant sale. Perfect!

Here's an easy recipe I adapted from the Betty Crocker Cookbook. I changed the original graham cracker crust to a Chocolate Cookie Crust (see below).. much better, I think, but then I like chocolate.

Ingredients for Filling:

1 cup broken white chocolate (make sure it's good white chocolate that's made with cocoa butter)
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
16 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 egg yolks
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream

1. Move oven rack to lowest position. Heat oven to 400°F. Lightly grease bottom and side of springform pan, 8x3 inches; remove bottom.
2. Prepare Chocolate Cookie Crust (see below). Baking 6-8 minutes and cooling.
3. Place white chopped chocolate in top of double boiler (or a saucepan on top of another saucepan with simmering water). Heat over low heat, stirring frequently, until white chocolate is melted. Remove from saucepan.
4. Increase oven temperature to 475ºF.
5. Beat melted white chocolate, 3/4 cup sugar and the flour in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until blended. Beat in cream cheese and egg yolks until smooth. Continue beating, adding the eggs one at a time, then the sour cream until blended. Pour batter carefully into crust. Cover pan with aluminum foil.
6. Bake 20 minutes; remove foil. Reduce oven temperature to 300°F. Bake 1 hour. (If cheesecake browns too quickly, cover loosely with aluminum foil during last 30 minutes of baking.)
7. Turn off oven and leave cheesecake in oven 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack 15 minutes. Run metal spatula along side of cheesecake to loosen before and after refrigerating. Cover tightly and refrigerate at least 8 hours, but no longer than 5 days. Run metal spatula along side of cheesecake to loosen; remove side of pan. Place cheesecake on serving plate. Refrigerate if you plan to serve later.

I like my cheesecake unadorned, but you can always add fruit or chocolate sauce. 

Chocolate Cookie Crust:

Ingredients
30 chocolate wafers (to yield about 1 1/2 cups crumbs)
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions
1. Put the cookies in the container of a food processor; process them until they are finely ground.
2. Transfer crumbs to a mixing bowl; combine crumbs, butter, salt, and vanilla; stir until the crumbs are moistened.
3. Press mixture evenly across the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan and all the way up the sides of the pan; pack tightly so crust is even and compacted.
4. Bake in a 350° oven for 6-8 minutes or until crisp.
5. Let cool completely before filling.

And the Oscar Goes to...

I know I'll be making some special chocolate treats for the Academy Awards, but probably not as fancy as the Chocolate Oscar statuettes created by Chef Wolfgang Puck. They'll be featured at a Champagne Bar at the Governors Ball following the Awards Ceremony. They are dark chocolate coated with edible 14-carat gold.

There are a few chocolate companies that have gold foil wrapped chocolate Oscar statuettes. Not sure if there are any still available. Amazon says they're out of stock, but I found a listing HERE. These chocolate Oscar statues don't have the panache of those by Wolfgang Puck, and I doubt the flavor, but if you need one now, they're available, just do a search.  I also found Chocolate Oscar Statue in a Gold Box HERE. 

Want to make your own Chocolate Oscar? I saw a Chocolate Oscar Statue Mold on eBay.


Want to make Cookies instead?


I have a great Oscar Cookie Cutter I found a few years ago on eBay. Mine is a real nice copper one, but you can find a different one HERE. And here's another with a base HERE. It's not available from Cookies Seattle right now, but it's the one I have, and you can find it if you do a search.

Speaking of Oscar Cookies, Bakerella had a fantastic post this week on Oscar Cookies, making, decorating and standing them up on cookie bases. Her cookies sure look like the winners, and I bet they taste like them, too!

Have a great Oscar Night!

National Chocolate Pound Cake Day

Today is National Chocolate Pound Cake Day. I've posted various pound cake recipes such as Kay Barley's Chocolate Walnut Pound Cake on Bittersweet Chocolate Day,  and here's another of my favorite Chocolate Pound Cake recipes that I've adapted from Southern Living. I've added ground chiles for a little more kick, but you knew I'd do that.

Buttermilk-Mexican Chocolate Pound Cake

8 oz chopped dark organic fair-trade chocolate
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 cup chocolate syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla (Madagascar)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ancho chiles
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
* Dust with powdered sugar (optional)


1. Melt chocolate in a saucepan over a saucepan of boiling water.

2. Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer 2 minutes or until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating 5 to 7 minutes or until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until yellow disappears after each addition. Stir in melted chocolate, chocolate syrup, and vanilla until smooth.

3. Combine flour and next 4 ingredients; add to butter mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition. Pour batter into a greased and floured 12-cup Bundt pan.

4. Bake at 325° for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a long wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack 10 to 15 minutes; remove from pan to a wire rack, and let cool for another hour. Garnish with powdered sugar if you feel like it.

Interested in learning more about Food Celebrations in March. Check out Months of Edible Celebrations! Louise has everything you need to know... and then some!

National Banana Cream Pie Day: Chocolate Banana Cream Pie

Another day, another food holiday! Tomorrow (March 2) is National Banana Cream Pie Day, and I thought a Double Chocolate Banana Cream Pie would be a great way of celebrating.

This is a pretty easy recipe and uses natural ingredients. Don't forget to skim down to an easier Rachel Ray recipe. My recipe uses a chocolate wafer crust, so it's doubly chocolate.

DOUBLE CHOCOLATE BANANA CREAM PIE

CHOCOLATE CRUMB CRUST:

2 c. chocolate wafer crumbs (whirl a bunch of chocolate wafer cookies in the blender)
2 tbsp. granulated sugar
2 tbsp. melted sweet butter

BANANA CREAM FILLING:
3/4 cup  dark chocolate broken into small chunks
1 pt. heavy cream
1/4 c. powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla (Madagascar, if you have it)
2 eggs
4 tbsp. butter
2 bananas

For crust:
Combine crumbs, sugar and melted butter. Press into a 9-inch pie pan, evenly coating bottom and sides of pie pan. Chill at least 10 minutes.

For filling:
Whip heavy cream with vanilla and powdered sugar until thick and creamy. Refrigerate.
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
In saucepan, melt 1/2 cup broken chocolate pieces over low heat.
Remove from heat and whip in 1 cup of the whipped topping you previously made and refrigerated.
Beat eggs and add to mixture.
Pour into pie shell and bake for 30 minutes.
Cool 15 minutes.
Slice bananas (cut in 1/4 inch pieces) and layer on pie.
Top with the remaining whipped cream mixture.
You can add the remaining chocolate and banana slices on top for decoration...or not.
Chill

TIP: To prevent a skin forming on the filling as it cools, be sure to cover it with saran wrap.

Want to make something even easier? 

Rachel Ray has a quick and easy Chocolate Banana Cream Pie

Ingredients

1 frozen pie shell, pricked several times with tines of a fork
1 package instant chocolate pudding, prepared to package directions
 2 ripe bananas, sliced thin on an angle
1 can spray whipped cream
1 dark chocolate candy bar

Pre-heat oven to 425ºF.

Bake pie shell 10-12 minutes, until golden. Remove from oven and let cool.

Line the baked and cooled pie shell with a layer of chocolate pudding, about half of the prepared amount. Add a layer of bananas. Top with remaining prepared instant chocolate pudding and remaining bananas. Cover the top with a giant swirl of whip cream from the spray can, starting at the center and working out. Shave a chocolate bar with a vegetable peeler and top pie with shavings. Serve immediately.

Your choice: The first recipe takes a little longer and you'll be sure of the quality of the ingredients, but the other is as Easy as Pie!

Photo: Food Network.