Hummingbird Bakery Chocolate Cheesecake

Ok, so I'm back on the chocolate bandwagon in a big big way, I know. This is possibly one of the most chocolate heavy desserts you could make, but it was a celebratory dessert!!! Well that's my excuse anyway. The oven at Colehill Kitchen has always been a bit of a disaster zone; it doesn't seem to have temperature control, so once you turn it on it just keeps getting hotter and hotter and hotter until it's like a furnace in there. This is great for bread making when you want the oven ridiculously hot, but it makes baking large cakes a real challenge (think black cinders on the outside, raw batter on the inside) and anything that needs a cool oven an absolute no-no. But a few days ago we got a new oven, YAYYY!!!! And what's the yummiest thing that needs a cool oven? Umm, hello? Cheesecake!

As well as the other Hummingbird recipes I've made, I've made this cheesecake before, about a year ago, and it really is rather huge. But it went down a storm with everyone (no surprise there really!) so I knew there would be no problem getting rid of this beast, and I was not wrong!! Despite the almost unbearable heat over the weekend, a third of the cheesecake was swiftly demolished, and now there are but a few crumbs left to prove it was ever there!!

Chocolate Cheesecake
Base:
200g digestive biscuits, finely crushed
2 tbs cocoa powder
150g unsalted butter, melted

Filling:
900g cream cheese
190g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

The base is your usual biscuit base. Melt the butter then mix it into the crushed biscuits and cocoa powder before pressing into a a 23cm round springform cake tin, greased and base-lined with greaseproof paper. Leave this to chill and harden in the fridge while you make the filling.

For the filling, melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, then set aside to cool slightly.

Meanwhile beat the cream cheese and caster sugar until thick. Add the vanilla extract and the eggs one by one, beating until fluffy. Careful not to overdo the mixing though or the cheese may split.

Then spoon on blob of cheese mix into the melted chocolate and mix, then a couple more dollops to bring both mixes to similar temperatures, before finally combining the lot and mixing until it is all an even colour.

Pour onto the base and bake in the oven for 40-50 minutes. Check it after 40 minutes to keep an eye out for burning around the edges, and take it out while there is still a wobble in the middle. Be brave about this!! If you leave it in too long the filling will be dry and crumbly, this you do not want - smooth and creamy all the way!!

Leave to cool and ideally chill overnight...if you can hold off that long!!

This recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook is competely over the top, rich and dense but not ridiculously heavy. Perhaps not the ideal dessert for a tropically hot and humid weekend but hey, it was a special oven-related occasion!! We deserved cheesecake after all this time!!