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Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Peppermint Cheesecake

I almost missed posting for today, until I sat bolt upright at 11:15pm and remembered I had to post today. Considering I'm down and out with the flu (what, you haven't heard?), this is some serious dedication to NaBloPoMo. (Or just fever-induced insanity.)

So, a quick and dirty recipe for you. Our building had a bake-off today and we came in second place with our peppermint cheesecake with chocolate peppermint ganache.

Ingredients:

Chocolate cookie pie crust, crumbled and smooshed into bottom of the springform pan.

Your favorite cheesecake recipe. Adam used his, which is really good, but is also sitting in a binder in the dining room and, as I said, not getting out of bed. But really you can adapt any cheesecake recipe to this. (If your cheesecake recipe includes citrus, such as the lemon juice in Adam's recipe, omit it.)

Crushed peppermint candies -- about 1 cup total crushed. I buy mine already crushed at a craft store, but you can just crush up some candy canes or starlight mints.

Whipping cream -- 1 cup. (I actually used light whipping cream because it was what we had available and it worked out just fine.)

Good quality chocolate -- 12 ounces. I used the Pound Plus Dark Chocolate from Trader Joes.

Peppermint extract -- 1/2 - 1 tsp.

Make your cheesecake according to your own directions, except stir in about 1/3 - 1/2 cup of the peppermint candies just before adding to your springform pan that already has the chocolate cookie crust in it. Bake cake according to your own recipe. Let the cake cool completely in the refrigerator. (You can add some peppermint extract at this step, but it wasn't needed in ours because the candies melted into it quite nicely.)

To make the ganache, heat 1 cup whipping cream over medium-high heat. Chop up the chocolate and add to a glass mixing bowl. When the whipping cream comes to a boil, add to the chopped chocolate in the glass bowl. Let it sit for a minute or two, then begin to stir until it becomes a glossy, uniform consistency. Add in 1/2 tsp. extract and stir. Taste to see if it is pepperminty enough for you, and if not then add in a touch more extract to taste, no more than 1 tsp. total (or it starts to taste like mouthwash). Let it cool for a a few minutes to thicken up a bit.

Remove the outer ring of the springform pan and move the cheesecake (on the bottom pan) to a cooling rack over parchment paper or foil. Slowly uabout 1/3 to 1/2 of the ganache into the center of the cheesecake, and spread it over the top of the cheesecake with the back of a spoon. Then slowly continue to pour more and more of the ganache over the center of the cheesecake, spreading it to the sides, allowing some to drip over. Continue until the sides are covered as much as you'd like. (We left our cheesecake peeking out a bit.)

Sprinkle half of the remaining chopped candies over the ganache and set the cheesecake back into the refrigerator for about 10 minutes. The ganache will harden and some of the candies will sink in -- this is okay. Then pull the cheesecake back out of the fridge and add the remaining chopped candies to the top. You may have to press them a bit to make sure they stick, but these will show more than the first set did. Keep cheesecake stored in the fridge.

Our recipe was a success -- I think we'll make it for Christmas dessert this year.