Chocolate Custard Cheesecake

A while back I posted a recipe for a chocolate custard cheesecake dip.  Since then, I’ve been working on modifying the recipe to be stiff enough to actually be a cheesecake, and this Thanksgiving, I think I’ve got it!

My favorite part, besides the taste, is that it is no-bake (after the crust is made), so no complicated baking regimens to prevent cake from cracking or browning.

Chocolate Custard Cheesecake

Crust*:

Cream:

1 stick of salted butter

1/2 t. vanilla

1/2 c. brown sugar.

Mix in:

1 eggs

1 egg YOLK

Add:

1 1/2 c. flour

1 t. salt

1/2 t. baking POWDER.

Stir until just combined.

Add:

3/4 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 c. sugar

Stir/knead until sugar and flour is incorporated.

Press dough into bottom and barely up sides of a large spring form pan (at least 9 inches in diameter).

Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes, until crust is set, still soft, and only barely starting to turn golden (edges will be a bit darker golden brown).

*Alternatively, for an entirely no-bake cheesecake, you could use a traditional chocolate cookie crust (1 package crushed chocolate cookie pieces and 1/4 c. melted butter) pressed into a spring form pan.  Chill this in the refrigerator while preparing the rest of the crust.  I haven’t tried this, just read it online.

Cheesecake:

In medium saucepan, whisk together and heat to a simmer on MED:

¾ c. (or 1 small can) EVAPORATED milk

¼ c. flour

Stir in until melted, and remove from heat:

½ c. chocolate chips

Separately, beat until pale:

3 egg YOLKS

⅓ c. sugar

Slowly pour warm milk mixture into eggs, whisking constantly.  (If not done carefully, there will be small pieces of cooked egg in the custard, which should then be strained out before the next step.) Return to MED-LOW heat.

Mix in:

(another) ½ c. chocolate chips

2 t. corn starch

Cook until it thickens, about 5 minutes.  Keep stirring.

Separately, beat:

3 packages cream cheese (24 ounces total)

⅓ c. sugar

dash of salt

Pour chocolate custard into sweetened cream cheese and mix thoroughly.  Top crust with this custard mixture and chill at least 4 hours. When slicing, make sure knife goes all the way through crust; hitting chocolate chips feels like hitting the bottom of the pan sometimes.

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Chocolate Cheesecake Dippers Recipe

I love chocolate.  For being such a chocoholic, I don’t talk about it much.  So today I’m blogging about my favorite chocolate cheesecake. 

 

The original recipe is from Nestle.  But I’ve modified it just a bit, because while I could eat a quarter of a cake, most people like smaller portions than are easily sliced.  There are also some cheaper substitutions I’ve made. 

 

The first thing you want to do is to set out your cream cheese.  I put mine on the stove while it is preheating for the cookies to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  You will need two 8-ounce packages, and it’s ok if this is off brand, because you’re going to mix it with chocolate and with sugar!  (Walmart usually has the cheapest.  You can also stock up when cream cheese is on sale during the holidays, because cream cheese has a long refrigerator life.) 

 

Next, you’re going to make the cookies.  You can use your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe or this one, which is a family classic. 

 

Mix 1 cup (2 sticks) of margarine with ¾ cup of sugar and ¾ cup of brown sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.  Cream.  Add 2 eggs.  Stir thoroughly, until the batter forms pea-sized chunks in the liquid of the whites.  Now mix in the dry ingredients: 3 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and 1 teaspoon of salt.  When batter is the stiff consistency of cookie dough, add 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips. 

 

Scoop heaping tablespoons of dough onto a cookie sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.  While the first pan is cooking, refrigerate your dough if possible.  Remove cookies from pan to wire rack to cool.  When all your cookies are done baking, you can start the filling. 

 

Begin with the two 8-ounce packages of cream cheese.  Add 1 cup of sugar, 12 tablespoons of cocoa powder, and 4 tablespoons of Crisco (solid vegetable shortening).  Stir for a really long time until: 1) your hand feels like it will fall off, 2) the bowl gets a hole in it, 3) the spoon breaks, 4) you can get a friend or family member to take over.  You will need the mixture to look thoroughly chocolate brown with no white showing. 

 

Then you are ready to add two 8-ounce tubs of whipped topping.  This will initially turn all of that lovely chocolate brown to fluffy white.  Stir, and you will begin to see signs of the brown reemerging.  Then stir some more, and your mixture may turn a lighter brown.  Stir, cream, press, beat until the whole thing is an even medium-brown color with a smooth texture.  Don’t use a mixer at any time, because the whole thing is pointless: the beaters get stalled in the thickness of the cream cheese, and you spend more time scraping than mixing. 

 

When this is accomplished you’re pretty much done.  Spoon the cheesecake filling into a pretty glass bowl, and line the sides with cookies or cookie halves.  You may want to provide spoons or knives with which to spread the dip over the cookies.  Cover with plastic and refrigerate at least for a couple hours before serving. 

 

The image at the beginning is half a batch.  I almost forgot the sugar on that one, and we got a Marine to do the beating, so my mom’s plastic mixing bowl broke.  Oops!  But oh, this is so yummy, and really popular.  Plus, except for it being really important not to forget the sugar, you can adjust almost any of the rest of the ingredients.  Use the low-fat or low-calorie versions of the whipped topping and the cream cheese.  Or use less whipped topping.  You can do less cream cheese.  And if when you’re counting you miss a tablespoon or two of cocoa, I dare you to notice the difference.  This recipe is very forgiving, and tastes great.  I’ve stored it in the refrigerator for over a week, still good.  The original recipe is actually a cake, where the cookie dough is the crust in the spring-form pan.  I’ve also thought about doing this parfait style in glass cups.  In the comment section of Nestle’s website, a few women mentioned making them in muffin cups and swirling the cheesecake filling like you would frosting.  Finally, I hear the filling is great frozen, almost like ice cream. 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Golden Days

I have been so busy.  When I was in high school I mourned that these were supposed to be the golden days, the friend days of life.  Then after high school I had brief moments at parties or Bible studies where I felt sufficiently surrounded by people living life to the fullest and loving God along the way that I thought the goldenness had come.  This summer, however, has been purely golden.  Friends everywhere have blessed me with lots of fellowship and reconnecting.  I’ve played in the park, counselled at camp, held babies, visited bookstores, stayed up late at homes, gone to Bible studies and prayed outside abortion clinics, watched movies, had brunch, gone to the zoo and the museum, played with little kids and talked with real grown ups (whether we admit it or not).  Life has been incredible. 

 

In fact I found myself today, on the drive between one activity and another, buying ingredients for chocolate cheesecake, just marvelling in being me, now.  And being perfectly content with that.  Never mind tomorrow.  I don’t have to think about huge things today.  Today is for living.  Some days I have to give prayer and thought to decisions, but not today. 

 

This is Jack’s kind of happiness in the dramatization of CS Lewis’ life, Shadowlands.  While visiting the Golden Valley, a picture of which hanging in his nursery represented heaven to his childhood, he says “here and now” is his kind of happy.  Joy, his bride, goes on to remind him that we live in the Shadowlands, and the pain then is part of the happiness now.  I think both are valid kinds of happy, and I love how the movie contrasts the two.  The Golden Valley even turns out to be a mistaken translation of a Welsh word, dwr, that means wet but sounds like the German for golden.  So our golden happiness can sometimes be the flip side of grey rains. 

 

Speaking of which, something especially wonderful happened this week.  I finally purchased the soundtrack to this wonderful movie.  The out of print cd has been on my birthday and Christmas wish list for almost a decade.  And now I have it, have listened to it with my volume turned as high as I ever play anything, to let the powerful music surge and surround me: choirs and classical themes beautifully calling to mind the emotions and ideas of the movie. 

 

This summer for my devotions I’ve been back and forth between Genesis and the Psalms.  I just finished Genesis last night, and wondered why the stories have to end with people dying.  I know they do die, but why do we have to hear about it?  And why do we have to be ok that it happens to everyone we know?  I like Jacob, spending half of Genesis with him, and then he just dies.  In fact he dies with much more pomp and dignity than I can imagine of anyone today.  He didn’t really do anything that great, like rule a country or win a war, but he was a nobler man than our heroes today, by the time he died.  And then Joseph dies.  And everyone’s story ends. 

 

Psalms is wonderful, though.  The ones I’ve been studying almost answer the question of death.  I like Psalms 37, 84, 95, and 106 this summer.  God gave each of them specially to me, and they’ve come in handy.  Today I’m enjoying the verse in 84 that says, “When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs, where pools of blessing collect after the rains!” (NLT). 

 

God has been so good to me this summer (obviously, since golden contentment cannot come in a fallen world to a rebellious person without grace).  One thing I’ve noticed is how He’s prepared me to enjoy this summer to the fullest.  I’ve been convicted about things that distract me from Him and from the present, or which impair my sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, so He’s actually had me on a minimal diet for TV, movies, novels, and Pepsi.  Some moments feel empty without putting in a movie, but I’m much better off for having spent time reading, and sharing some parts of my books with my family, or with praying, or spending days with my friends – whole days without coming home.  I thank God for my friends. 

 

And I thank God for opportunities to get outside my office and my house and to be active, especially in ministry.  Still looking for big options, but delighting in the little ones, these golden days. 

 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

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Just Now

I’m sitting here, sinking into my computer screen as only happens when I’m completely tired. One boot is on, and one is off. I’ve been eating an indulgent amount of chocolate cheesecake. A friend told me this week that her favorite version of Little Women is that with June Allyson (an many other famous people, including a whole entourage also appearing in Meet Me In St. Louis), so I was watching that. When I read the book I was young and not all that attentive to detail, but I’m pretty sure the newest adaptation is more accurate. This version was delightful, though.

My finger is better today, still carefully protected by a band-aid. A patient gave me a bracelet that is in a variety of pretty pastels, including two shades of pink but only one of blue, green, and purple. I’m enjoying drinking out of a glass and pondering the extensive contamination our world has with plastic.

At work today I spent every free moment studying Shechem, which was an exciting biblical exercise, and with a little more research completed when I am fully conscious, will be a blog post. I imagine my faithful readers checking my blog and thinking me crazy, for the information is quite long, and I’m not entirely sure of its relevance. But I feel sure that it is important, and I am very interested.

Also coming up will be a review of the final Jane Austen Season offering from Masterpiece: Sense and Sensibility. I intend to watch the entirety in one sitting at some point to form my opinion sufficiently for blog authority.

My cat is awake, and so is a family member, since they just turned their doorknob (fortunately those handles are not homicidal). This week I finished sewing a shirt for my sister which I began before her birthday in January. Buttons on my black coat are mended into security. But curtains I made for Mom’s birthday in November 2006 are still not entirely functional; we use clothespins to hold them up and let light in – without which we get cabin fever and insist on turning on each of the five lamps in the room. All this so we can gaze transportedly into laptop or television screens.

With the best of intentions I resolved to get to bed on time and rise earlier to pray more diligently beginning this week. Though I set my alarm at 8 this morning, I only got up at 9, but fortunately had time enough to put gas in my car (sufficient to get me to work) and stop for a doughnut. Now it is after 1 AM, and I am still not being self-disciplined in my schedule. My problem, I think, is the food supply in our house. I feel obligated to eat dinner, and if I eat it ought to be something substantial, but either there is nothing or it is the same something I ate twice already this week. By the time I convince myself those excuses are petty, I’ve wasted positively hours. Not to worry; I spend the whole intervals between opening cupboards and refrigerators conversing pleasantly with my tolerant and sympathetic family. Then I supplement my decisions with cheesecake or ice cream, and the world doesn’t seem bad at all.

Before I had a blog I rambled like this in emails to my friends. Some bloggers would divide this into many posts. I don’t consider my consolidation lazy. I am quite willing to separate my topics, but WordPress and Blogger are so tedious.

Let me close tonight by sharing with you something I once said so casually and sincerely that without it being considered by a dear friend to be my motto, I would have forgotten. “You can laugh at me; I do.”

To God be all glory,
Lisa of Longbourn

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