Idea for Cheesecake

[Brum_Brum]

Every Xmas I make A big baked Vanilla Cheesecake (Jamie O recipe). Want to try mixing something different into it this year, was thinking of crumbling some Xmas pud in. Any other ideas ?

[Murph7355]

I don't do baked cheesecakes - prefer no-bake ones.

Have had Christmas pudding in a baked one - worth a go.

Terry's chocolate orange works in no-bake ones. I think it'd work in baked ones too.

White chocolate and raspberry would work I think.

White chocolate and ginger's a good one, but doubt that would work as well in baked...

[mattdaniels]

How about making individual ones instead of a big one? I make individual Toblerone cheesecakes with a fruit coulis.

Toblerone Cheesecake with Charred Lime Coulis by Matt Daniels, on Flickr

[Brum_Brum]

Good suggestions! Cheers

[21TonyK]

Cranberry seems the obvious choice?

[Gareth1974]

How about mincemeat?

[sidekickdmr]

I also can’t handle baked cheesecakes, the texture is

However I am on pudding duty xmas day and im liking the sound of a terrys chocolate orange no bake cheesecake, thanks for that idea

[brrapp]

Fudge. Just make a vanilla one and roughly grate/crumble some fudge through the cheese, then finely grate a bit more over the top.

[Burwood]

Slight hijack as I can't see a cakes thread. Question for Matt please. Matt, I'm making a Chocolate Log as opposed to a Yule Log as I think the chocolate needs balancing out with cream.

My question being; most recipes specify Dark Chocolate mixed with cream for the icing. Simply melting chocolate with double cream over a water bath. Can I use Milk Chocolate?

I'm not a huge fan of dark chocolate. Im just wondering if there is something specific about the Cocoa content of Dark which would make Milk Choc unsuitable. Cheers.

[pc.iow]

I made a cheesecake last week, bally lovely even if i do say so myself.
I'm no chef and tend to get all Keith Floyd with the ingredients due to the amount of wine consumed while cooking.
I put a bit of powdered ginger in the base.

[Gareth1974]

Burwood said:

Slight hijack as I can't see a cakes thread. Question for Matt please. Matt, I'm making a Chocolate Log as opposed to a Yule Log as I think the chocolate needs balancing out with cream.

My question being; most recipes specify Dark Chocolate mixed with cream for the icing. Simply melting chocolate with double cream over a water bath. Can I use Milk Chocolate?

I'm not a huge fan of dark chocolate. Im just wondering if there is something specific about the Cocoa content of Dark which would make Milk Choc unsuitable. Cheers.

Not sure how it would work with milk chocolate instead of dark, but I made the Mary Berry recipe which comes up on the BBC food website, and thought the ganache wasn't too bitter - It had 300g dark chocolate to 300ml double cream, I also added a jar of black cherry conserve to the filling, with some cherry liquor to give it a Black Forest theme, thought it worked well,

[mattdaniels]

Burwood said:

Slight hijack as I can't see a cakes thread. Question for Matt please. Matt, I'm making a Chocolate Log as opposed to a Yule Log as I think the chocolate needs balancing out with cream.

My question being; most recipes specify Dark Chocolate mixed with cream for the icing. Simply melting chocolate with double cream over a water bath. Can I use Milk Chocolate?

I'm not a huge fan of dark chocolate. Im just wondering if there is something specific about the Cocoa content of Dark which would make Milk Choc unsuitable. Cheers.

Firstly, I am flattered that you directed the question to me, but I am not a chef. Tony21K is your man for proper chefy questions

And secondly, yes I think you are right to question the use of milk chocolate. I think you'll end up with a very mild flavour mixing milk chocolate with cream. As you probably know, the strength/bitterness of chocolate is governed by the percentage of cocoa solids and also by what fats (eg. cocoa butter) are in the choccy. So if you do go down the milk chocolate route, get proper cooking milk chocolate don't use bars of Dairy Milk for example. That said, I don't like dark chocolate either, so I buy bags of dark chocolate buttons which have 55% cocoa solids ("normal" dark chocolate starts at something like 70%) and that's just about perfect for my palette.

Worth having an experiment and seeing which you prefer.

[Burwood]

Gareth1974 said:

Burwood said:

Slight hijack as I can't see a cakes thread. Question for Matt please. Matt, I'm making a Chocolate Log as opposed to a Yule Log as I think the chocolate needs balancing out with cream.

My question being; most recipes specify Dark Chocolate mixed with cream for the icing. Simply melting chocolate with double cream over a water bath. Can I use Milk Chocolate?

I'm not a huge fan of dark chocolate. Im just wondering if there is something specific about the Cocoa content of Dark which would make Milk Choc unsuitable. Cheers.

Not sure how it would work with milk chocolate instead of dark, but I made the Mary Berry recipe which comes up on the BBC food website, and thought the ganache wasn't too bitter - It had 300g dark chocolate to 300ml double cream, I also added a jar of black cherry conserve to the filling, with some cherry liquor to give it a Black Forest theme, thought it worked well,

That's the recipe Im using-yours looks great! And many thanks Matt

[shakotan]

My go-to baked cheesecake has loads of grated dark chocolate mixed in with the cheese mixture, half digestive/quarter hobnob/quarter ginger nuts for the base, and sliced clementines caramalised in sugar for the top.

[HotJambalaya]

My friends Mrs made a baileys and caramel one. Was epic....

[ooo000ooo]

Wife does a mint aero cheesecake (not baked) which is nice and refreshing after a big meal. Think she uses recipe in one of nigella lawsons books as it was pretty idiot proof?

[Gareth1974]

Burwood said:

That's the recipe Im using-yours looks great! And many thanks Matt

Thanks. Note that recipe suggests using chocolate containing 35-40% solids for the ganache which is quite low. I used Tesco 'standard' (not value) which is 45%, this might suit your tastes more than a higher percentage.

I also found that if you follow the recipe you end up with excessive quantities of ganache, after generously coating the log I still had half left. You could get away with making less than suggested I think, or maybe spread a bit on the inside before rolling it. Hope yours turns out nicely!

Edited by Gareth1974 on Thursday 22 December 06:37

Edited by Gareth1974 on Thursday 22 December 06:37

[Brum_Brum]

Thanks for the input guys, I might try caramelising some clementines for the top too

[Murph7355]

sidekickdmr said:

...
However I am on pudding duty xmas day and im liking the sound of a terrys chocolate orange no bake cheesecake, thanks for that idea

It is very good. Make sure you put slices of TCO on top.

The Baileys one mentioned later is also a winner.

And if you remotely like ginger and white chocolate, try that one (with raspberry coulis ).

No bake cheesecakes are top notch and a piece of ....cake....to make.

[rsbmw]

Doritos cheesecake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdXqC1Ql634