Chocolate Birthday Cheesecake from @MaddieDayAuthor #giveaway

MADDIE here. Today is my next-older sister Janet's 70th birthday! We are less than two years apart in age and have been close since our teen years. 

Preteen ballerinas Edith and Janet

We attended the same university, we're the two out of the four Maxwell siblings who earned advanced degrees and traveled the world, and we just plain like each other. She's also an excellent cook.

But I can't travel to Ottawa, Canada, to help her celebrate. We can't meet in Puerto Rico for a family warm-weather birthday party as we'd dreamed of. I've arranged for a special gift to be delivered from a local indy bookstore to her, because we're a family of voracious readers, and we all have to support bookstores.

Maxwell sisters Janet, Barbara, and Edith with our mom, Marilyn, in 2012

Still, I'd rather celebrate in person. This is a recipe blog, and I happen to know how much my sister loves good chocolate. So I thought I'd make her a chocolate cheesecake. Jannie, I'm sorry you don't get to taste any! I hope you have some special birthday chocolate today.

Chocolate Birthday Cheesecake

Fair warning: this makes a large, rich cheesecake.

Ingredients

Crust:

24 Oreo cookies

1/4 cup butter, melted

Filling:

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

3/4 cup heavy cream, room temperature and divided

24 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

5 large eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate Ganache:

1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

3/4 cups minus 2 tablespoons heavy cream

2 tablespoons Baileys Irish Cream (or just use all heavy cream)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 325°F.

Lightly grease a 9-inch springform pan

Add Oreo cookies to a food processor and crush until you have a fine crumb and very few larger pieces.

Add melted butter and stir until evenly distributed.

Press the crumbs into the bottom of the springform pan (and up the sides).

Place a rimmed cookie sheet on a lower oven rack (crust will drip). Bake the crust for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool. 

In a four-cup measuring cup, add 1/4 cup of heavy cream and the chocolate chips. Heat for 20-second intervals until the chips have melted and the mixture is smooth with no lumps. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese with a hand-held mixer until creamy and smooth.

Beat in the sugar and cocoa powder until smooth.

Add the eggs, one at a time, and 1/2 cup of heavy cream, mixing until combined.

Fold in the chocolate mixture.

Add the vanilla and stir to combine.

Pour the batter on top of the cooled cookie crust.

Bake for 70 minutes (keep the rimmed cookie sheet on the lower rack). The cheesecake is done when the sides are set but the center is still a little bit jiggly.

Remove the cheesecake from the oven and let it rest until the pan is cooled.

Refrigerate for 4 hours or until completely chilled.

Combine chocolate chips and heavy cream into a large glass measuring cup. Heat in the microwave in 20-second intervals until melted and creamy. Stir in Baily's. 

Pour over chilled cheesecake and let it sit for about 15 minutes or chill longer before removing the pan's outer ring.

Slice and serve!

Readers: What's your favorite birthday cake to make (or order) for others - or for yourself? To celebrate, I'll send one commenter a copy of Strangled Eggs and Ham, which includes a recipe for Southern Jam Cake.

My most recent book is Candy Slain Murder, the eighth Country Store mystery. As with all my books written as Maddie Day, you'll find easy recipes in the back.

The next book out in late March will be the wide release of Murder at the Taffy Shop, the second Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery - up for preorder now!

After that, my alter-ego has A Changing Light, our seventh Quaker Midwife Mystery releasing on April 13! It's also up for pre-order.

I hope you'll visit Edith Maxwell and me on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.

Chocolate Cheesecake #recipe + Cookbook Nook Mystery #giveaway from author @DarylWoodGerber

GIVEAWAY BELOW...

From Daryl:

I own a number of cookbooks. Do you? I love my dessert cookbooks. Heck, I love dessert. One of my all-time favorites is cheesecake. It's not hard to make, just a little time intensive. I've made caramel cheesecake, caramel and chocolate cheesecake, strawberry cheesecake, pumpkin cheesecake (particularly good at Thanksgiving!).

What I love about cheesecake is that it contains a lot of protein. Oh, sure, there's a lot of sugar, too, but protein is the way I can convince myself that cheesecake is good for me.


As you know, I need to eat gluten-free, so for the crust, I used pre-made gluten-free cookies. Some of my favorites, by the way. Tate's chocolate cookies. Yum!

However, um...that didn't work out very well and I'm not sure why! Too much butter? Too many cookies? Were they too chocolately so they hardened too much? Sigh. I've shared the "problem" below when I remove the cake from the springform pan. It did NOT hurt the flavor of the cake. Promise. This cake was splendid through and through.

In fact, I have to admit that this cake lasted 2 weeks for me. Yes, I ate it all myself. I didn't have any guests or family to share with. Poor me.  LOL  I enjoyed a sliver every day. It was total decadence and such a delight. And it helped me face my current work-in-progress which is sucking all my energy. It's due in a week. Don't get me wrong. I'm loving every moment of writing it. But writing isn't always EASY. Wish me luck.

 

From LusciousChocolate Desserts By Lori Longbotham

Per the author: Gorgeous and tall, this is a beautiful, bountiful, and glamorous dessert. Be sure to present in in its full glory before cutting it into service pieces.  Serves 12

Killer Chocolate Cheesecake

Crust:

1  9-ounce package chocolate wafers, broken into large pieces (*I used gluten-free)

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and wrap the outside tightly with aluminum foil. Have a roasting pan ready, and put a kettle of water on to boil for the water bath. (*See my note: I did not have a roasting pan big enough for this step. You need a really wide roasting pan. So I used a cookie pan with edges. See more about this below.)

To make the crust: Pulse the chocolate wafers in a food processor until finely ground.  With the motor running, slowly add the butter, and process just until blended. Press the mixture onto the bottom o the pan.

Bake the crust for 8-10 minutes, until it is set. Let cool on a wire rack.

Filling:

1 pound bittersweet chocolates, chopped

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

3 8-ounce packages cream cheese, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

4 large eggs

Pinch of salt

1 ½ cups sour cream, at room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

To make the filling: Melt the chocolate with the butter in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of about 1 ½ inches of nearly simmering water, whisking until smooth. (*See my note: I microwaved this, zapping at medium high for 20 seconds at a time, whisking until smooth.)  Whisk in the cocoa powder. Remove the bowl from the heat and let the mixture cool to room temperature.

Beat the cream cheese and sugar with an electric mixer, beginning on low speed and increasing to medium-high in a medium deep bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the salt. Beat in the chocolate mixture until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as necessary.  Add the sour cream and vanilla and beat until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl again.

Transfer the filling to the springform pan. Set the pan in the roasting pan, place it in the oven, and carefully pour in enough boiling water to reach hallway up the sides of the springform pan.  (See my note: As mentioned above, I did not have a roasting pan big enough for this step. You need a really wide roasting pan. So I used a cookie pan with edges. I filled that with water and set it in the oven to “boil” the water. I set the springform pan on top of that.) 

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the center is almost set but still slightly jiggly (*See my note: mine took nearly 60 minutes to get to the jiggly stage…maybe due to the lesser amount of water around the pan?)  Do not over bake—the cheesecake will firm as it cools. Remove the roasting pan from the oven and let the cheesecake cool in the water bath for 15 minutes.

Remove the springform pan from the water bath and let cool completely on a wire rack (about 2 hours), then remove the foil and refrigerate the cheesecake, loosely covered, until thoroughly chilled, at least 12 hours or overnight.

To serve, let the cheesecake stand at room temperature for 20 minutes. Remove the pan sides, smooth the sides of the cheesecake with a table knife, and cut into wedges.

-->

When removing from pan, it stuck. Not sure why. Too much butter?

GIVEAWAY

Because Sifting Through Clues is coming out April 23, I'm starting to do giveaways to alert everyone to the news.  Today, I'm giving away winner's choice of Cookbook Nook Mystery 1-7. Leave a comment and tell me what your favorite dessert is. Maybe I'll make it soon. Leave an email so I can contact you in case you win.

SIFTING THROUGH CLUES buy link

The latest Cookbook Nook Mystery (#8), available for pre-order. Comes out April 23.

What's it about?

Book clubs from all over have descended on Crystal Cove to celebrate the library’s Book Club Bonanza week, and Jenna Hart has packed the Cookbook Nook with juicy reads and tasty cookbooks. But she’s most excited about spending an evening with the Mystery Mavens and their moveable feast, when they will go from house to house to share different culinary treats and discuss the whodunit they’re all reading. It’s all good food and fun for the savvy armchair detectives, until one of the members of the group is found murdered at the last stop on the tour.

As if that weren’t enough to spoil her appetite, Jenna discovers that all the evidence points to her friend Pepper as being the guilty party. And with Pepper’s chief-of-police daughter too close to the case to be impartial, Jenna knows she’ll have to step in to help clear her friend’s name before a bitter injustice sends her to jail. Sifting through the clues, Jenna unearths any number of possible culprits, but she’ll have to cook up a new way to catch the killer before Pepper’s goose is cooked.

Includes tasty sweet and savory recipes!

SAVOR THE MYSTERY!

 

Friend Daryl and Avery on Facebook
Follow Daryl on Twitter
Follow Avery on Twitter
Follow both of us on Pinterest
Plus check out my website

Follow Daryl on Bookbub

A SOUFFLÉ OF SUSPICION, the 2nd French Bistro Mystery.

Can Mimi prove her chef innocent before the chef gets dusted?

Click here to order.

A DEADLY ÉCLAIR, the 1st French Bistro Mysteries, in all formats.

Can Mimi clear her name before the killer turns up the heat?

Click here to order.

SIFTING THROUGH CLUES, the 8th Cookbook Nook Mystery.
Sifting through the clues, Jenna unearths any number of possible culprits, but she’ll have to cook up a new way to catch the killer before her friend Pepper’s goose is cooked. 
Click here to order. 

-->

WREATH BETWEEN THE LINES, the 7th Cookbook Nook Mystery.

Jenna Hart is busy decking the halls and ducking a killer

Click here to order.

FOR CHEDDAR OR WORSE, the 7th Cheese Shop Mystery by Avery Aames.

Finally there's going to be a cheese festival in Providence!

Click to order.

GIRL ON THE RUN, a stand-alone suspense.
When a fairytale fantasy night becomes a nightmare, Chessa Paxton must run for her life...but will the truth set her free?

Click to order

DAY OF SECRETS, a stand-alone suspense

A mother he thought was dead. A father he never knew. An enemy that wants them dead.

Click here to order

Buried in a Bog Cheesecake for #Halloween

Ah, that lovely season when the dead rise again! You probably know of my fondness for graveyards, not to mention my obsession with my dear departed ancestors (“You have how many names in your family tree?” Actually, as of this week it’s 13,165, not including the Irish side.)

But sometimes it’s hard to find appropriate recipes for Halloween. In the past I’ve offered you black pasta (hand-imported from Italy!) and black garlic, and even spider cookies crawling out of a pumpkin one year. This year I realized I had overlooked one very obvious choice: the bog dead!

A few years ago my daughter gave me a set of skull baking molds (she knows me well). But I seldom feel the urge to make skull muffins or cupcakes. What else could I do . . .  And then I had this idea for skulls emerging from a pool of peat (aka a bog). Don’t worry: the skulls are shortbread, and the peat is dark chocolate cheesecake.

(If you’re faint of heart, you could make pumpkin cookies instead and scatter them over the nice field of cheesecake earth.)

The Skulls:

I used the basic shortbread recipe from my post last week and pressed the dough into the molds, filling them only part way (you could also use sugar-cookie dough). Then I baked them. It’s all right if they brown a little—a skull marinating in peat for a few centuries should be a bit discolored.

The Crust:

This will not show, but you will need it if you plan to eat this concoction (silly question) This recipe fits a 9-inch pan, but I doubled it for a 9x13” pan (I wanted to fit more skulls in).

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray your pan with cooking spray.

9 oz. chocolate wafer cookies (crunchy ones, not chewy ones)

2 Tblsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 stick butter, melted

In a food processor, grind the cookies to fine crumbs, then blend in the sugar and salt. Add the melted butter and blend. Press into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake until set (about 10 minutes), then cool.

The Cheesecake:

I searched through recipes and picked the deepest, darkest one I could find.

12 oz. (2 bags) bittersweet chocolate (if bars, chop)

1-1/2 cups granulated sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

4 8-oz. packages cream cheese, at room temperature

4 eggs

Melt the chocolate (microwave works well, or in a double boiler—slowly!), stirring steadily until the chocolate is melted. Let cool to lukewarm.

In a medium bowl, whisk the sugar and cocoa powder together (no lumps!). In a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes), then add the sugar/cocoa powder mixture. Beat well, scraping down the bowl. Blend in the eggs, one at a time. Finally mix in the lukewarm chocolate and stir.

Let me tell you, this stuff is delicious! I was tempted to eat it straight from the bowl.

Building your Bog:

Take your pan with the cookie layer and arrange the skulls on that—you can use as many as you want, and distribute them in whatever pattern pleases you—all lined up or randomly.

Pour in the filling carefully around the skulls. Actually, I had to use a pastry bag—the batter was a bit too thick to pour. But this is supposed to be peat, so it doesn’t have to be tidy. The layer doesn’t have to be too deep—you want the skulls to look like they’re emerging from the murk, ever so slowly. If you’re feeling creative, you can sprinkle some left-over crumbs around the skull to make the bog look more authentic.

This is a very large peat bog in Shannonbridge,
Ireland. It provides fuel for a nearby electric
generating station.  I had to stop and check it out.

Bake until the center is just set (that is, still a little wiggly), rotating the pan in the oven once during cooking. The exact timing will depend on how large your pan is and how deep the cheesecake layer is. Start checking after 30-40 minutes. It’s  not the end of the world if it’s baked a bit too long—the cheesecake will be more brownie-like in texture rather than creamy, but it will still taste good.

If you’re really into it, go wild with more decorations—maybe black sprinkles or some hints of green (bogs are growing things, you know). I did draw the line at adding a few (clean) chicken wing bones for effect, though. Maybe it would look good if you served it in the light of flickering candles.

Refrigerate your bog cheesecake overnight before you try to cut it (if you can wait that long!).

Savor it after the manic sugar-fueled trick-or-treaters have retreated for the night.

Oh, and a giveaway bonus: a pumpkin that will last more than a couple of weeks (It's cloth.)

And if you've never read Buried in a Bog (the first book of my County Cork Mystery Series), I'll throw that in too.

Here's a picture of the bog it's based on:

My great-great-grandfather's bog down the hill
from Knockskagh in West Cork. The peat is
under the brown grass.

Just leave a spooky comment and I'll draw one name for the pumpkin (hmm, I could draw a name out of a pumpkin . . .)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Godiva's Ultimate Chocolate Cheesecake

Each year when Christmas is over, I start gearing up for New Year's. Three of my college roommates come to my house for a weekend-long house party. We catch up on each other's lives, celebrate the good things, and commiserate about the not-so-good. It's a late nights-wine-eating-movies-talking-pajama-clad affair.

I always try to make a showstopper dessert for New Year's Eve. This year, one of my guests suggested Godiva's Ultimate Chocolate Cheesecake. The great news is that it's super easy to make. This cake is a decadent chocaholic delight. It's dense and powerfully chocolate.

In the recipe, they say that the top will crack around the edges. If that bothers you, try a different cake or you could try baking it in a water bath. I just piped whipped cream on it to hide the cracks. No one else even noticed. I used Annie's Chocolate Graham Cracker Bunnies for the crust and they worked very well.

This recipe calls for 4 large bars of Godiva's 72% dark chocolate. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it anywhere. Shhh. Please don't tell Godiva, but I dared to make this cake with Lindt 70% dark chocolate bars. Look for the large 3.5 ounce size.

Please note that you have to make this cheesecake a day ahead of time for it to settle.

Godiva's Ultimate Chocolate Cheesecake

1 ¼ cups chocolate cookie crumbs
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
1/4 cup hot coffee mixed with ¼ cup very hot water
¼ teaspoon salt
14 ounces (4 bars) GODIVA Large 72% Dark Chocolate Bars, divided
16 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325. Mix the cookie crumbs with the melted butter and 2 tablespoons of sugar and press into the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan.

Break up the chocolate bars while still in the wrappers. You can feel the chocolate breaking. But save 1/2 of one bar intact for decorating the top if you wish. Microwave the chocolate in 30 second bursts, stirring in between until melted. Set aside to cool for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the coffee with the salt and hot water. Beat the cream cheese about 2 minutes. Gradually add the cup of sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one. On a slow speed, beat in the coffee mixture. Pour in the chocolate gradually while beating on  slow speed. Pour into the pan and bake for 55 to 60 minutes, until the center is set but slightly wobbly. Cool on a rack completely before refrigerating.

1 1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
fresh berries (optional)

Beat heavy cream, vanilla, and sugar until stuff peaks form. Spread or pipe the cream on the top of the cake. Garnish with fresh berries and/or remaining chocolate. When taking cheesecake out of the fridge, let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before cutting.

Oops! No Godiva!

Break up the chocolate.

So smooth. Liquid gold, er, chocolate.

Beat the cream cheese.

Pour in the pan.

YUM!

Happy New Year!