White Chocolate Cheesecake

I have three stories on cheesecakes. 

I went through a phase in high school where my favorite dessert was the Starbucks New York Cheesecake.  Oh I loved it and my mom wouldn't make it for me - she said it was too difficult to make.  Years later, I realized that she was probably just watching out for my waistline because it's one of the easiest desserts around.  This is New York cheesecake style in that it's just made with cream cheese.  I quite like ricotta and mascarpone cheesecakes as well.

Now let's go forward in time. It was Jana's birthday a couple of days ago.  Jana's my Austrian friend and flatmate.  She loves cake.   I'm sure I've talked about her at some point in the past on Happy Belly.  But she loves cake, as you would probably imagine an Austrian would.  She can have cake all day long, breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner.  It's..worrisome.  I want to just feed her her five-a-day sometime.   It was her birthday and she wanted a chocolate cheesecake and so she got a chocolate cheesecake. 

Now let's come back to the present.  I just had a beautiful keylime pie made by my friend, Jess.  It's essentially just a cheesecake flavored with keylimes mmm. Hah I just had a blast with her, some friends and her mother and aunt. 

So.  Serve as it is, though a recipe for a simple ganache is included, so you can pour that on top if you'd like.  I also sprinkled some pretty colors on top to make it more festive.  It's decadent, it's sweet, it's smooth, it's light, it's good.  Mmm.  


Adapted from here
Ingredients
Cookie crust
230g chocolate digestive  biscuits
90g butter, melted

Cheesecake
600g cream cheese, room temperature
5 eggs
1/2 cup flour, sifted
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp honey
1/2 cup double cream
200g white chocolate

Ganache
220g white chocolate
1/2 cup double cream 


Method
Cookie crust
Preheat oven to 180C.

Put the ingredients in a food processor and pulse until everything's mixed.  Press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a springform pan.  Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven and let cool.

Cheesecake
Reduce oven to 160C.
Place cooled pan on some aluminum foil and wrap it up the sides of the pan to waterproof.

Chop up the white chocolate and put it in a heat safe bowl.  In a small pan over medium heat, bring the cream to a simmer then pour it over the white chocolate.  Stir until completely melted.

Beat the cream cheese until smooth and creamy, like 2 minutes.  Beat in the sugar, honey and then the white chocolate mixture.  Then reduce the mixer speed to low and add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Fold in the flour and salt. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan.  Put the pan into a large roasting pan and pour boiling water into the pan.  Filling it up to just about 2cm, don't let it go over the aluminum foil.  Bake for one hour, then turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake in the oven for one more hour.  Leave it to chill in the fridge.

Ganache
Chop up the white chocolate and put it in a heat safe bowl.  In a small pan over medium heat, bring the cream to a simmer then pour it over the white chocolate.  Stir until completely melted.  Pour over the cheesecake.