Dutch Chocolate-Mint Cheesecake

This cake exists to make me fat. For serious.

It has 32 oz. of cream cheese in it.

A total of 21 oz. of bittersweet chocolate.

4 eggs and a little cream.

But it’s just a little cream, so it’s cool, right?

This cake certainly isn’t for the faint of heart or the thin of thighs.

Well, more so that you won’t be able to keep your thin thighs.

It stands 3-inches tall and is a dense solid block of chocolatey mint goodness.

The mint is tricksy.

It lies to you. It makes the cake seem lighter… fresher.

It is not light. It is rich with a big ol’ gut and a sassy attitude. It’s essentially a chocolate wafer cookie that has been stacked high with a mound of cream cheese and chocolate that you need to be ready for when that pile of delicious goodness hits your lips and coats your mouth and throat.

You might wanna get a cup of coffee ready to cut through that.

The sour cream layer helps too. I mean, it’s a millimeter of sour cream topping on 3 inches of cheesecake, so to claim it “cuts” the cake would be a bit of a fib, (honestly I’m not sure that what knives do to this cake could be considered “cutting”, so much as negotiating with it to separate if it so desires) but rather, it compliments the rest of the cake quite nicely.

I’m not even usually a huge fan of the sweetened sour cream that tops many a cheesecake (I get unresonably snobby and think it’s all just a ploy to cover up cracks and nothing more) but it works quite well here.

The ganache though… and I know it’s chocolate and I’m usually a strong advocator of “Chocolate? MORE! MORE CHOCOLATE!”.. and I find it to be pretty addition but.. unnecessary?

Now hear me out. I love chocolate. You know that. I know that. But there’s such a thing as too much chocolate.

/gasp! What? I know, I can barely believe it either. But it’s kind of like putting butter on lard. Both are fabulous products, but at some point you have to stop yourself and ask if there’s something you could be doing to enhance the products instead of just stacking them. Put that lard in a pie crust, and the butter on some corn.

Of course, this just may be my frustrations with my piping skills (or lack thereof) coming to the surface.  Pro-tip, don’t freeze the ganache longer than the recommended 15 minutes. Your ganache will become too stiff to pipe smoothly, and your impatience will cause you to try to pipe it anyway, in squiggly, uneven lines, and your hand will ache from having to squeeze the piping bag so hard.

Or maybe that’s just me?

Next time, I would crumble chocolate wafer cookies on top of the sour cream layer instead of the ganache. Or maybe Mint Oreos…?

That may just be another butter on lard scenario.

Which, even with the whole spiel I gave, only moment ago, doesn’t sound half bad.

I never seem to learn from my mistakes that involve chocolate consumption.

I blame my thighs.

Adapted from epicurious.com

Crust

• 1 9-ounce box chocolate wafer, cookies, broken
• 3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 7 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, hot

Filling

• 12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1/4 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons peppermint extract

Topping

• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup sugar

• 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Directions

1. Crust: Finely grind cookies, chocolate and sugar in processor. Add butter; blend until crumbs begin to stick together. Press crumb mixture firmly onto bottom and up sides of 9-inch-diameter springform pan with 2 3/4-inch-high sides.
2. Filling: Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Melt chocolate in top of double boiler over simmering water, stirring until smooth. Cool to lukewarm. Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl until blended. Add eggs 1 at time, beating just until incorporated. Add melted chocolate, cream, cocoa powder and extracts and beat just until smooth.
3. Pour filling into crust. Bake until center is just set, about 1 hour. Transfer to rack and cool 20 minutes. Press down gently on puffed edges to flatten. Run small sharp knife around top edge of pan to loosen. Do not remove pan sides. Cool. Cover and chill overnight.
4. Toppings: Preheat oven to 350°F. Combine sour cream and sugar in bowl. Spoon sour cream topping over cheesecake. Bake 20 minutes. Chill cheesecake until cold, at least 6 hours.
5. Place chocolate in a heat proof bowl. Bring cream and butter to simmer in heavy small saucepan. Take of heat and let cool for 1 minute. Add to chocolate and and let sit for one more minute then whisk until smooth.
6. Freeze until firm enough to pipe, whisking occasionally, about 15 minutes. Remove pan sides from cake. Spoon chocolate topping into pastry bag fitted with small star tip. Pipe 6 diagonal lines atop cake, spacing evenly. Repeat in opposite direction, forming lattice. (I find that it helps to use a ruler and a knife to lightly draw the lattice pattern in the sour cream ahead of time to use as a guide as you pipe. I also only did 5 lines in each direction because the math was easier. (1.5 inches between lines!)) Pipe 12 rosettes (or 10 if you only did 5 lines) of chocolate around top edge of cake.

Can be made 1 day ahead, keep chilled.

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