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Baked Chocolate Cheesecake—Prototype 26 (7-Way Chocolate):
3-Cheese Blend (1CT-1NC-1YG):
Prepare ahead of time 16 ounces of yogurt cheese, derived from one 32-ounce
container of nonfat yogurt. If the resulting yogurt cheese falls below 16
ounces, add back enough of the whey (that was strained out from the yogurt) to
make up the difference. To this yogurt cheese combine 16 ounces of whipped,
lowfat cottage cheese and 16 ounces (two 8-ounce packages) of softened
Neufchatel cheese ("light cream cheese").
Grease a 9 1/2" (or 9") pan, but do not wrap foil around it
yet (see below).
Chocolate Crust:
4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, melted
3/8 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
8 oz. (1 cup) 3-cheese blend (see above)
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 10 minutes, then cool enough to comfortably touch at least the
pan's upper sidewall.
Chocolate Batter:
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/8 cup cocoa powder
40 oz. (5 cups) 3-cheese blend (see above)
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
2 teaspoons vanilla
6 eggs
Cookies:
Double-chocolate sandwich cookies, about 2 dozen (Whole Foods 365 or
Newman's Own recommended)
Expect just over 7 cups of the resulting batter, but do not add this to the
pan all at once. Rather, this needs to be done in three installments. Wrap
the pan in foil just before adding the first installment (to minimize the
foil's disturbance and therefore its leakage risk, do not put it on any
earlier). Or as an alternative to using foil, place this pan in an
Easy Bath Cheesecake Wrap—and don't bother
waiting for the pan to get comfortably cool to do so.
For each of the first two installments, gently (especially with the second
installment!) scoop about 3 cups of batter into the pan, and add about 12
cookies (don't bother breaking them up—keeping them whole is fine and,
in fact, recommended), ensuring that they are fully coated and—as much
as possible—immersed. After adding the first installment, bake the pan
with its contents for 20 minutes, at 325 degrees. However, after adding the
second installment, bake the pan with its contents, still at 325 degrees,
but only for 15 minutes. Then reduce the temperature to 300 degrees, and
continue baking for another 15 minutes (that's a 30-minute "baking
installment" here—the first 15 minutes at 325 degrees and the
next 15 at 300). For both installments here, bake with the pan in a tub
filled with at least 1/4 to 1/2 inch of boiling water, but (to reduce
spillage risks) do not fill the tub all the way at this point, because the
whole tub-and-pan assembly is going to need to be removed from the oven
(in order to comfortably add contents to the pan) between installments.
After all this is done, there should be just over a cup of batter left,
with 50 minutes of baking time reached at this point (20 minutes for the
first installment, and 30 for the second one). Now comes the third
installment—carefully add the last of this batter (do not add any more
cookies at this point) on top of the pan's other contents. Try to fully coat
the entire surface, especially wherever cookie pieces may be showing. Next,
return the entire pan-and-tub assembly to the oven. At this point, fill up
the tub generously with boiling water. Resume baking at 300 degrees for
another 55 minutes (based upon usage of a 9 1/2" pan).
Afterward, shut the oven off, and leave its door slightly ajar, with the
cheesecake still inside—and in the tub—for an hour. Next, remove
the cheesecake from the oven and tub. Now, for a special chocolate touch,
add two concentric borders of chocolate chips, one of semi-sweet and the
other of white, around the edge of this cheesecake (see photo below).
Continue to cool it down at room temperature for another two hours. After
doing so, remove the cheesecake from pan, then add a chocolate syrup drizzle
pattern on top (see photo below for a suggestion) and refrigerate
(or add the drizzle at a later point).
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