As I am not yet the owner of a kitchen aid stand mixer, I took the opportunity to use my boyfriend's mother's mixer while we were visiting for dinner. I decided to make the cappuccino fudge cheesecake as I wasn't in the mood to make both brownies and a cheesecake, which the other recipe had called for.
I had one heck of a time finding heavy or whipped cream, apparently the day after new years many stores aren't stocked well. Both Trader Joe's and Whole Foods were out, but I was happily able to find it at Shaws. The cheesecake called for four layers, the first of which is the crust, made from chocolate teddy grahms. I used a food processor for the first time in my life to crumble them with the bittersweet chocolate (which, according to wikipedia, is only required to be 35% cacao), butter, and dark brown sugar (which smells heavenly). I didn't have a spring-form pan, but I was able to get my hands on a bunt pan with a removable bottom, which I decided would have to suffice. I guess I'll just have a cheesecake with a hole in it...
After the issues with the pan and cream, things went smoothly enough. I covered the bunt pan with the crust and proceeded to make the ganache, as directed. I apparently have a terrible time following directions, as I never tend to read ahead (or comprehensively). I heated the heavy whipping cream till it started to simmer and then proceeded to drop the rest of the bittersweet chocolate, still in huge chunks, into it. It was then, when I was wondering idly how long it would take to melt, that I read the chocolate was supposed to be chopped into small pieces. Whoops. It wasn't an issue, as I simply put the mixture back on the heat for a bit (to warm the cream again), and added the Kahlua. As instructed, two cups of that went into the bottom of the pan while the rest of it went into a tupperware container to transport back here for decoration. The whole pan went into the freezer while I started on the actual cream cheese filling. That part went as planned, although the mixture turned out more liquid-like than I would had presumed.
When we eventually made it back here with the cheesecake in parts - the bunt pan with the crust and ganache, the bowl of filling, and the tupperware of ganache for decorating - I assembled it and stuck the pan in the oven, on the middle rack, as advised. Now, my oven is new to me. I have used it around three times and I have yet to get the feel of it. It is gas and it never seems to cook at the temperature it reads on the dial. Things that I have cooked many times before come out almost burnt in just over half the time they usually cook for. Because of this, I decided to cook the cheesecake at 300 for half an hour instead of the 350 for an hour that the recipe called for. About twenty five minutes into things I started to smell something so, naturally, I went to look. I opened the oven and my smoke alarm went off, at 11:30 at night. Right above our poor landlord who's husband passed away a few days ago and was probably hoping for a peaceful night's sleep. There I am jumping around with a pot holder trying to wave the smoke away from what I thought was the smoke detector when my bleary-eyed boyfriend comes out of the bedroom to disable the device across the hall. Since he's up, I took the cake out of the oven and we looked at it - nothing was burnt. Not even the thin crust at the top. I opened the windows in our tiny apartment, hoping to get a cross wind to move the smoke out, and I turned the oven back on. Five minutes later, there's smoke creeping out of the burners. As the cheesecake wasn't in the oven, I decided that there must be something else in there burning. It was then that the boy asked if I had put a pan under the bunt pan to catch any drippings as, you know, the bottom comes out and there's a crack. Right. Yeah. If I had followed the directions instead of thinking that I, of course, knew what I was doing, this wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't have a half-baked cheesecake sitting in my fridge till I can finish cooking it tomorrow after I clean the oven.
So, for now, my cheesecake is not done. But it will be for tomorrow and I shall hopefully not burn the house down in the process.
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