Chocolate Cheesecake!

This is my first attempt at a photo blog/recipe, so I'll ask that you bear with me as I found it to be a bit of a challenge to take pictures and make a cheesecake at the same time! I promise, it'll get better!

In honour of Valentine's Day, I'm starting out with an amazingly good chocolate cheesecake!

Valentine's Day Chocolate Cheesecake

It all starts with the basic cheesecake ingredients:

(a little later in my adventure, I realized I forgot to include the chocolate in the initial picture, so here it is, all chopped up in a bowl. There's 8 squares of semi-sweet chocolate.) 

1: Melt the butter and mix it with the cookie crumbs in a 9 inch springform pan. I find it easier to mix it in a little bowl before and then dump it in the pan. 

The back side of a measuring cup or flat-bottomed drinking glass is ideal for pressing the crumbs down to make the crust of your cheesecake. 

2: In a stand mixer, cream together the sugar, cream cheese and vanilla.

3: While all this is turning into this: 

take the aforementioned forgotten chocolate and melt it. Give it time to cool before mixing it in with your grand cheese/sugar/vanilla mixture. 

4: Add your eggs one by one, mixing until they're just blended, then pour the whole thing over your crust. 

5: Pop it in the oven for 45-50 minutes (until the middle is just about set) Once it's out of the oven, take a knife and run it around the edge to loosen the cake. Wait until it's completely cooled before removing the springform. Refrigerate for 4+ hours. Enjoy!!

I don't have a completed picture because as soon as it came out of the fridge, my husband was into it. But it turned out beautifully and the texture was very light and super chocolatey!

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of chocolate cookie crumbs

2 tbsp butter (melted)

3 bricks of cream cheese

8 squares of Baker's Semi Sweet Chocolate (melted)

3/4 cups of sugar

1 tsp of vanilla extract

3 eggs

Oven @ 325F (if you're using a dark pan, lower it to 300F) 

Happy Baking!

Crystal