Triple Chocolate Cheesecake

I've been a bit out of commission lately, and so have been a bit sporadic with my updating here - sorry! Unfortunately sometimes life gets in the way of itself. The last week hasn't been as busy, but I had my five (yes, five) wisdom teeth removed last Thursday so eating hasn't been so easy.

Mum was telling me that the art of invalid cooking has been lost, but after she recommended I eat junket and I looked it up we realised the so called "dairy food" I was consuming is basically the same as junket, so perhaps it's just a rebranding thing - ambiguous as "dairy food" is I know which I'd rather eat!

Until yesterday I was still mostly veering towards soft things, as the stitches (sorry if that's too much info for a food blog!) only came out yesterday, so I was subsisiting in yoghurt and dairy food, Up&Go, soup, sieved mash - and last Friday I had KFC potato and gravy for dinner and it felt like the best meal I'd ever eaten - judge me as you will...

I've gotten a bit more adventurous now but my mouth is still pretty sensitive to anything that's a bit hard - I can't wait to eat crunchy things!

It was my birthday on Wednesday (poor planning to have teeth out the week before a birthday, I know, but it was that or risk jeopardising some of Wellington on a Plate!) and I still had my stitches, so I was trying to decide whether to make a cake and watch everyone at work eat it for me, or delay. Until it occurred to me: there are cakes without crumbs! Ice-cream cake, while it would be wonderful, is a tad impractical for the workplace, but cheesecake is a word I've been hearing a lot of lately and the filling - which constitutes about 95% of the cake anyway - is squidgy enough to be eaten by invalids like me. ;-)

This is a cheesecake I've made (and written about) before, but I wanted to reprise it - for one, the photos last time were terrible, and I thought it might be possible to make it prettier. And hey, chocolate and cheesecake together, how can that go wrong?

This is a pretty easy recipe to make, so long as you have lots of bowls, either a very strong arm or an electric beater or stand mixer, and can overlook the whopping 900g of cream cheese (hey, no-one said it was supposed to be good for you!). ;-)

Last time I made it I went for the zebra effect, which is done by scooping 1 cup quantities of the alternate batters into the tin (i.e. 1 cup dark choc, 1 cup milk choc, 1 cup white choc, repeat), but the OCD in me wanted a neater (though less cool) result this time so I did simple layers. The flavours of the different layers are more distinguishable this way though it doesn't have the same crowd-pleasing effect so it's up to you how you want to do yours.

I forgot to cover it with tinfoil, which just means the top was darker than it should have been, but I think it looks caramelly and alluring anyway so wasn't too worried. I also ran out of cooking time (I will never learn, always start baking too late in the evening!) so instead of baking at 160 for 1.5 hours I turned the oven off after an hour, went to bed, and woke up in the morning to a pretty spot-on cheesecake. Last time I made it I baked it the proper way so I know that works, but it's good to know what you can get away with. ;-)

It was a pretty good substitute for normal birthday cake - though I'm definitely looking forward to fully normal eating again. I should have known better than to schedule an appointment so close to my birthday, too - when I was 9 I had a tooth extracted (I've now had three bonus teeth grow in that one spot - the first one was a baby tooth so fell out on its own) on the day of my birthday party, so I've already suffered through an invalid-food birthday! Have you had your wisdom teeth out? What did you subsist on?

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake
Ingredients
200g gingernuts
1/4 cup brown sugar
115g butter
1 Tbsp cocoa
900g cream cheese
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups caster sugar
1 cup cream
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
100g 70% dark chocolate
100g milk chocolate
100g white chocolate

Preheat the oven to 160 C. Prepare a 22.5cm springform tin by greasing, cutting a round of baking paper to fit the bottom of it, and a strip to line the edge (so the edges are smooth when you unmold it), and firmly wrapping in tin foil. The tin foil is to prevent water from leaking in when baking in a water bath.

Crush the gingernuts and mix with brown sugar, cocoa and melted butter to make the crust. Press into your prepared tin, evenly coating the base.

In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar and beat well, then gradually add the eggs, beating between each addition. Add the lemon juice, vanilla and salt and mix just to combine.

Melt the chocolate in separate bowls and allow to cool slightly. Separate the filling mixture into three even portions and mix in the chocolate.

Spread the dark chocolate mixture evenly onto the crust, followed by the milk then white chocolate mixtures. Cover with tin foil, place in a roasting dish of boiling water, and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes, until the mixture is mostly set but slightly wobbly in the middle. Cool, then chill overnight or for 8-12 hours before serving.