Daring Baker Challange

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.This is my inaugural adventure into the Daring Baker Challenge. While I am definitely a Daring Baker, I am by no means an expert baker. Being a dairy-free household means we do not eat much cheesecake. I had a fortuitous opportunity to experiment with this challenge while at the same time baking for a great cause.

I modified the presented recipe to make Mini Chocolate Mint Cheesecakes I made mini cheesecakes because the items for CASA needed to be individual. I chose Chocolate mint because I had several boxes of Girl Scout Thin Mints left in my pantry instead of the more traditional Oreos.

I have used water bath for Flan before but my flan dishes are much taller than my cupcake pans. I first used my lasagna pan for the bath as I do with my flan. But it sloshed and drowned the poor things. I switched to a cookie sheet and mastered the technique of removing the muffin tin without removing the cookie sheet. With the second batch I heated the water with the oven and put the muffin tin in without moving the pan. That worked wonderfully.

I ended up making two batches of the recipe to create enough treats for the event. The second batch turned out much better. I did not change anything as far as ingredients. I just improved my technique. The key to make these turn out well is thoroughly blending. I was concerned about overmixing it the first time through so instead I ended up with lumpy and not well incorporated ingredients. Also the first time, I did not have the mixer runner as I poured in the chocolate. When I did turn the mixer on the chocolate had already started to harden and did not mix in well. You can see the difference between the two. The second even looks more appealling in addition to tasting better. The second is the one on the right.

I was going to give them a drizzle of chocolate and a mint leaf to dress them up but I ran out of time. Still they were well appreciated.

Here is the recipe.

Ingredients
•
CRUST
• 1 box Thin Mints
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted

FILLING
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon peppermint extract

GLAZE
• 6 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1/3 cup whipping cream
• 2 tablespoons butter, cut up
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

Directions
1. Heat oven to 350ºF. Wrap bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan with wide heavy duty foil.
2. In a medium bowl, stir together cookie crumbs and melted butter until crumbs are evenly moistened. Press evenly into bottom and 1 inch up sides of pan. Bake 6-8 min or until set; cool on wire rack.
3. Place 6 oz. of chocolate in medium bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir frequently until chocolate is smooth and melted; remove bowl from saucepan.
4. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar at low speed until smooth.
5. Beat in flour. Beat in 2 of the eggs just until combined; repeat with remaining 2 eggs. Scrape down sides of bowl.
6. Beat in sour cream and vanilla and peppermint extract just until blended.
7. Stir the melted chocolate into the batter in the large bowl until completely blended; pour into crust.
8. Place pan in a large shallow roasting pan or broiler pan. Fill with enough hot tap water to come halfway up sides of the springform pan.
9. Bake 60 minutes (30 min for the mini-cheesecake).
10. Remove cake from water bath; remove foil. Place on a wire rack; cool to room temperature, about 2 hours.
11. Meanwhile, place 6 oz. finely chopped chocolate in another large bowl. Place cream, 2 Tbs. butter and corn syrup in heavy medium saucepan; heat over medium heat 2-3 min or until hot but not boiling. Remove saucepan from heat as soon as first bubble appears.
12. Pour over chocolate and let stand for 1 min to soften. Stir until mixture is smooth and chocolate is melted.
13. Stir in 1/2 teaspoons peppermint extract. Cool to room temperature, about 1 hour.
14. Pour glaze over cooled cheesecake in pan, spreading evenly over top; refrigerate at least 6 hours before serving.
15. Store in refrigerator. Cheesecake can be made up to 3 days ahead; stored in refrigerator.