INGREDIENTS
- Filling Ingredients:
- 1 lb. bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
- 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
- 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 3 8-oz. packages cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 large eggs
- pinch of salt
- 1 1/2 cups sour cream, at room temperature
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- *1 cup semi-sweet and/or milk chocolate, chopped
- *1/4 or 1/2 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate morsels (Nestle makes these)
DIRECTIONS
- With the rack in the middle of the oven, preheat to 350 F degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and wrap the outside tightly with heavy duty aluminum foil. Have a roasting pan ready, and put a kettle of water on to boil for a water bath.
- Filling: Melt the chocolate with the butter in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of about 1 1/2 inches of nearly simmering water, whisking until smooth. Whisk in the cocoa powder. Remove 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 just until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as necessary. Add the sour cream and vanilla and beat until smooth, scraping down the sides again.
- *Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the 1-cup of chopped chocolate evenly on the crust. Transfer filling on top of this, about halfway full. Sprinkle the rest of the 1-up of chopped chocolate on top of the filling. Transfer the rest of the filling to the pan. Top the filling with an even sprinkling of the mini-morsels.
- Bake for 45 minutes, or until the center is almost set but still slightly jiggly; do not overbake--the cheesecake will firm as it cools. Remove the roasting pan from the water bath and let cool completely on a wire rack, then remove the foil and refrigerate the cheesecake, loosely covered, until thoroughly chilled, at least 12 hours 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.
- Modification notes:
- I like to leave the cheesecake in the oven for around 55 minutes, but my oven is gas, and it takes a little longer to cook.
- I also do not smooth the sides of the cheesecake before serving, but I like the home-made look.
- The reason I put chunks of chocolate on top of the crust and in the middle, and put the mini-morsels on top is because I love chocolate, and it's great to have the texture of the cheesecake vary. The original recipe doesn't have any chocolate chunks or morsels in it.
- I also love the crust, so I added some to the recipe. The original recipe calls for 9 ounces of chocolate wafers, which is one package of chocolate wafers.
