Baked Chocolate Cheesecake

  I am kind of a person who loves to indulge but not at the cost of my health. I am reluctant to compromise when it comes to my family's health. So I choose the recipe accordingly. In my refrigerator, there were 2 blocks of cream cheese lying for couple of weeks. My daughter was demanding a cheesecake for some time. But I was not ready to serve a calorie loaded cheesecake to the kids. After searching for couple of days, I found this recipe which do not need gelatin and whipped cream, just only cream cheese and it is baked. So, decided to try the recipe and the result is in front of you. As it came out so good, I thought to place the recipe on my blog. Hope it helps someone who loves Cheesecake.

This cheesecake is rich, moist, dense, and hugely chocolaty. This recipe does not require any fancy ingredients. You can omit chocolate, if you like to make plain vanilla flavoured cheesecake or any other flavour of your choice. But if you are making chocolate cheesecake, I would recommend to use dark chocolate bar and not any chocolate chip. Chocolate chip doesn't have that flavour or intensity, if you really love chocolate. Use a good quality chocolate bar for this.

Cheesecake has two layers. The lower layer or crust is made with powdered cookies mixed with little sugar and butter and then it is baked for 15 minutes. You can use Oreo or any other chocolate cookies or plain graham cookies. I used chocolate sandwich cookie for this.
Always use a spring form baking pan for making cheesecake. It's easy to remove the cake from a spring form pan than any other normal baking pan.

I prepare a baked Strawberry Cheesecake, check the recipe here.

Now let's move on the recipe....The amount I am sharing will make a 7" cheesecake. 

You Need :
FOR THE CRUST :
Cookies : 10-15 nos.
Granulated sugar : 3-4 tblsp. or according to your taste
Butter : 2-3 tblsp or as needed(check the How To part)

FOR THE FILLING :
Cream cheese : 16 oz. or around 400 gms. ( 2 standard pack)
Eggs : 3
Granulated Sugar : 1/2 cup or as per taste
Dark chcolate bar : 1/2 cup, grated
Milk : 1/3 cup
Vanilla extract : 1 tsp.
Cake flour/APF : 2 tblsp.

How To :: 

• Preheat the oven to 375°F or 180 C. Lightly grease a 7" springform pan.
• To make the crust: Crush, grind, or otherwise pulverize the cookies together with the sugar; a food processor works well here. Remove the biscuit crumb in a bowl, add as much melted butter to make the mixture moist enough to spread. Press the moist crumbs into the bottom of the prepared pan and put the pan into the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Take out and let it cool. Meantime, prepare your filling.
• Reduce oven temperature to 350 F or 170 C.  
• To make the filling: Combine the milk and chocolate chips in a small saucepan or microwave-safe bowl. Heat, stirring frequently, until the chips melt and the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat and set the mixture aside.
• In a large mixing bowl, beat together the cream cheese and sugar at low speed, until thoroughly combined. Do not beat too much, just until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating to combine after each one.
• Stir in the vanilla, then the flour. Add the melted chocolate, beating slowly and just everything is combined well. 
• Pour the batter over the cooled crust in the pan. Bake the cake (remember, the oven temperature should be 350°F) for 45 to 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the cake 1" from the outside edge comes out clean. The center may not look set but that's OK.  
• Turn off the oven,keep the oven door open several inches, and allow the cake to cool in the oven for 1 hour. Remove the cake from the oven, and set it on a rack to finish cooling. When it's completely cool, remove from the spring form pan, cover the cake, and refrigerate it until ready to serve. 
• Garnish the cake as you wish, you can garnish with scraped/grated chocolate. You can also serve in small pieces with whipped cream and berries. 

Extra Tips :

• When you're baking the crust, as soon as you can smell a strong chocolate aroma, remove it from the oven; it's done. 
• Use a spring form pan to bake a cheesecake. 
• Use a good quality dark chocolate for a nice chocolate flavour cheesecake. 

Similar Recipe :

Baked Strawberry Cheesecake