Recipe: Dark Chocolate Cheesecake (Topped with Fresh Blueberries)

It's not even been a week and I've been baking again already! What can I say, nothing gets between a woman and her craving for dark chocolate. And hey, who doesn't appreciate a good cheesecake? So, I thought I'd share this fairly simple recipe with you - two birds, one stone.

A deliciously rustic looking dessert (or maybe that's just because I had to use my phone camera for this one). Oops!

Ingredients

• 150g of digestive buscuits
• 50g of butter
• 150g of dark chocolate
• 110g of caster sugar
• 200g of cream cheese (I recommend Philadelphia, nice and simple!)
• 120ml of whipping cream
• Roughly 1 tsp of cocoa powder
• A handful of fresh blueberries

Fresh, juicy blueberries compliment the bitter chocolate and cocoa powder perfectly.

Instructions (approx. 2 hours to make)

•  Crush the digestive biscuits (you can do this with a rolling pin or by hand) and melt the butter over a low heat. Mix the crushed biscuits and melted butter together in a large bowl with a tablespoon of your caster sugar to form the buttery base for your cheesecake.

• Press the mixture into a 7 inch cake tin - preferably spring-loaded to make popping your finished cheesecake out later much easier - making sure that the surface is as flat/level as possible - and then place it in your refrigerator to chill for 1 hour.

• Melt the chocolate over a low heat (mixing it with a spoon as you do so to ensure that there are no solid lumps left) and then allow a few minutes for it to cool.

• While you are waiting for the chocolate to cool, mix the cream cheese and remaining caster sugar together in a large, clean bowl and set it to one side.

• Slowly add your 120ml of whipping cream to the cool, melted chocolate. Mix the cream and melted chocolate together thoroughly.

• Add your melted chocolate and cream mixture to the bowl containing the mixed cream cheese and caster sugar. Fold both mixtures together thoroughly until it is of a thick and silky ganache-like texture. Your cheesecake filling is done!

•  Take your chilled base out of the fridge and spoon your filling on top of it. Use a spreading spatula to help spread it out evenly (right up to the edges of the tin) and smooth it off for the sake of presentation. Place your cheesecake back into the fridge and leave it to set for 1 more hour.

• Carefully pop your cheesecake out from it's cake tin and place on a level surface before adding the final touches.

• Sift no more than a teaspoon of cocoa powder through a sieve (or tea strainer, if you have one to hand), covering the top of your cheesecake. Then take a small handful of fresh blueberries and scatter them across the top, as well. (You can lightly press some into the surface to help them stay put, if you'd like).

• Serve and enjoy!

If you tried this recipe out, let me know! Or, if you can think of a topping that would work even better than blueberries (I'm just a sucker for blueberries), why not suggest it?