Baked Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake—Prototype 3:
 
Looking back, I have made no less than 20 different cheesecake prototypes around the late-1980's. This resulted in 5 different "solo" cheesecake flavors—lemon, plain, chocolate, orange and cherry. I had already brought these into the more recent times of the 21st century. However, there was still just one other kind made by me from that earlier era—and this one was a "duo", i.e., a two-flavor combination, which was made with two of the aforementioned five stand-alone flavors. Those two were chocolate and cherry. It reminded me of black forest cake. Another treat that comes to mind here is chocolate-covered cherries (or perhaps chocolate cordial cherries). This pairing of the two "CH's" has been a particularly big hit around Valentine's Day.

As a matter of fact, I made some chocolate cherry treats close to that holiday around 2010, give or take a few years. But those treats were HiFi Buddy bars—not cheesecake. After more than half a decade of turning out cheesecakes in the 21st century, it was time for me to bring the last of my 1980's cheesecake flavor varieties into this more recent era.

As with my 21st century's first lemon and orange cheesecakes, my 21st century chocolate cherry combination would get started with this era's flavor-oriented "Prototype 3" designator, due to my making two chocolate cherry cheesecakes back around the late 1980's—under that era's generalized (i.e., not flavor-oriented) "Prototype 19" and "Prototype 20" names (I tried to "marble" the chocolate and cherry together in those two early prototypes, but to no avail—the much more recent Prototype 3 presented here would get the standard, two-layered treatment).
 
2-to-1 Blend of Yogurt Cheese and Cottage Cheese:
Prepare ahead of time 32 ounces of yogurt cheese, derived from two 32-ounce containers (that's 64 ounces altogether) of nonfat yogurt. If the resulting yogurt cheese falls below 32 ounces, add back enough of the whey (that was strained out from the yogurt) to make up the difference. To this yogurt cheese combine one 16-ounce container of whipped, lowfat cottage cheese.

Grease a 9 1/2" (or 9") pan, but do not wrap foil around it until just before the batter is added (spreading the crust in an already wrapped pan can result in greater disturbance to the foil, thus increasing leakage risks).

Chocolate Crust:
4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, melted
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
8 oz. (1 cup) 2-to-1 blend of yogurt cheese and cottage cheese (see above)
3/8 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 oz. finely ground All-Bran

Place the resulting mixture in the greased pan and pre-bake without tub at 300 degrees for 5-10 minutes, depending on the mixture's thickness (closer to 10 minutes if thin enough to be fully distributed across the pan's bottom by gentle shaking, closer to 5 minutes if thick enough to require spreading out this mixture by pressing on it with a utensil and/or fingers), then cool enough to comfortably touch at least the pan's upper sidewall.

Cherry Batter:
2 tablespoons melted/softened butter (unsalted recommended)
3 1/2 tablespoons (1/4 cup, less 1/2 tablespoon) Cherry Kool-Aid (pre-sweetened) mix (about the same amount of mix that would be needed as if to make 1/2 quart of the drink itself, but do NOT rely on the package's enclosed scoop)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons arrowroot
20 oz. (2 1/2 cups) 2-to-1 blend of yogurt cheese and cottage cheese (see above)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs

Wrap the pan in foil at this point. Carefully pour the batter on top of the crust and bake all this in a hot water tub at 325 degrees for about 40 minutes. Afterwards, take the tub-and-pan assembly out of the oven and promptly add the batter indicated below.

Chocolate Batter:
2 tablespoons melted/softened butter (unsalted recommended)
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
7/8 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons arrowroot
20 oz. (2 1/2 cups) 2-to-1 blend of yogurt cheese and cottage cheese (see above)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs

Carefully scoop this on top of the cherry batter (it is best to do this around the edge of the pan and let the chocolate batter flow towards the middle) and return the tub-and-pan assembly to the oven, this time at only 300 degrees. Bake for about 90 more minutes (if using a 9 1/2" pan). Then shut off the oven and cool the cheesecake down while still in it (and in tub), with the oven door slightly ajar, for about an hour. Afterwards, remove the cheesecake (still in its springform pan) from the oven and tub and continue to cool it down at room temperature for another two hours.

After cooling down at room temperature, remove the cheesecake from its pan and refrigerate.

Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake—Prototype 3 (whole) Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake—Prototype 3 (slice)

This tasty cheesecake did surprisingly well for a snowy day at Living Hope Church. Despite the low turnout, nearly 7/8 of this one was gone in probably under 45 minutes after the start of the church's coffee/refreshments time—although the cheesecake was served among what seemed to be a small selection of snacks. I did not see what happened to the rest of it (I would guess that somebody probably took it to go).
 

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