Chocolate Chip Cheesecake
Our anniversary fell on a Saturday this year. When I asked Chris what she wanted to do, she said, “Let’s stay home and bake.” With that, Bake-Fest was on!! Now we just needed to figure out what we were going to bake.
As soon as we started our new baking hobby, cheesecake was one of the first things I wanted to make. We figured it would be a nice dessert for our anniversary, so this became the first thing on our list.
The other bakes we decided on were:
- Povitica
- Bleu Cheese and Walnut loaf
- Kouign Amann
We had already made the Povitica and Bleu Cheese and Walnut loaf before, but we liked them so much, we had to do it again. I can tell you that our second time baking each of them turned out better than the first. But for now, let’s talk about this cheesecake!
But what kind?!?
Once we decided to make a cheesecake, we needed to figure out what flavor to make. This got kinda complicated and I’m glad we started talking about it a few days in advance. I had it in my mind that I wanted to do a graham cracker crust, then a layer of chocolate and then plain cheesecake. I couldn’t find any recipes that had a layer of chocolate between the crust and the filling. I asked our friend Lisa about it, and she said that it wasn’t a good idea because the chocolate could crystallize or burn. So we skipped that idea and we found a recipe for chocolate chip cheesecake. This sounded like a pretty good substitute.
Surprise, surprise!
To be honest, I had it in my mind that making a cheesecake was going to be an overly complex process. I was pretty surprised by how easy the process really was.
If you’ve never made a cheesecake before, the one thing that I would point out is that it’s a little different than most other bakes in that you will not want to skimp on the very last step… let the final product cool in the fridge until it is COLD before serving. Yeah, we totally failed at this step. We had made the cake in the afternoon, but after it’s done baking, you turn off the oven and leave it alone in the oven for another hour. Then move it to the counter to cool. THEN move it to the fridge to get cold. The original plan was to cut into the cake the next day. But, after it was in the fridge for about 90 minutes or so, we could wait no longer. Unfortunately, it was still a little warm and the temperature really affected my enjoyment of it. Also, because it wasn’t fully chilled, the crust was REALLY crumbly.
That said, after leaving it until the next evening in the fridge, our next slices of the cake were damn good. And, the crust really firmed up and held together nicely when slicing and serving.
I feel like a broken record saying that I was surprised with how well it turned out. We really enjoyed the cheesecake, and I can definitely see us making it again. I’d like to try a couple other recipes, but also wouldn’t mind if we made the chocolate chip version again several more times.
