First, a story.

Smash spends a good chunk of time surfing the interwebz and Pinterest for some nommy things to bake on Thursday night. Smash comes up with three delicious-sounding items and decides to call her husband to see which he wants most before she goes to the grocery store. The following conversation occurred:

Smash: “Hi Honey, I was going to go the the store and wanted to ask you which of the-”

Husband: “Cheesecake!”

Smash: “-se things you’d like me to ba… Cheesecake? Really? Don’t you want to hear what I cho-?”

Husband: “Cheesecake! With Chocolate Swirls!!”

Smash: “Cheesecake with-”

Husband: “AND RASPBERRIES!”

Smash (folding and setting the other delicious recipes aside for another day): “You got it, babe.”
~fin~

So you’ll have to wait on those other three items, because rarely does my husband make requests and they are never that specific. So I sat in my car in the parking lot of Kroger and looked up Chocolate Swirl Raspberry Cheesecakes. Ha.

I found this recipe with really positive reviews on Epicurious. So I set out to get the ingredients for it and made my way home.

Crust

  • 7 ounces chocolate cookie wafers (about 27 cookies)
  • 1/2 cup husked toasted hazelnuts (about 2 1/2 ounces)
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Filling

  • 1 6-ounce package semisweet chocolate chips
  • 2 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 4 large eggs, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup sour cream
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon grated lemon peel
The recipe also has a topping that is optional. I chose to skip it.
This was my very first experience EVAR making a cheesecake from scratch. It was definitely a learning experience and I loved getting to break in my new Pampered
Chef Springform Pan (Which I ADORE).
Overall I was super excited about making my first CHEESECAKE and a MARBLE one at that! It was really fun to do the swirly designs and not as difficult as I thought it would be when I started.
For the Raspberry Drizzle I simply combined three tablespoons of Raspberry Pie Filling, 2 tablespoons of confectioner’s sugar, and a couple tablespoons of water until it was runny enough but not too runny. It turned out really well!
But how did it taste? I was a little disappointed. If I do this recipe again I will cut the amount of chocolate chips used in half. The chocolate overwhelmed the delicious creamy flavor that cheesecakes are known for. It was still there, you just had to get past the super chocolatey-ness first.
Now the Chocolate Cookie/Hazelnut Crust? That was AWESOME. We didn’t have chocolate wafers at kroger, so I got Chocolate Animal Crackers. I could just eat the crust all day – no lies.
This cheesecake was also a little more heavy than I like. I like a very light, fluffy cheesecake that is rich in flavor. This one was very rich and tasty, but not very fluffy. I didn’t do it in a water bath because the recipe didn’t call for it, so there were cracks. I wonder if that also kept it from being fluffy enough? Or maybe the eggs? I’m definitely going to try this one again with these minor alterations. It was good – just not great. :)
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