Monday, November 18, 2019
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| Double Decker Neapolitan Cheesecake |
Published on January 12, 2013.
Well it certainly is a momentous occasion on Rock Recipes today as we post our 1000th recipe to date. This website started on September 25, 2007 as a means of providing recipes to family and friends who were always asking for them. Before that time I almost never wrote down any of the recipes for my kitchen experiments but that was soon to change.
Around that same time I was preparing for yet another surgery on a badly busted ankle, after which I would spend several months in a wheelchair before spending several more months on crutches while having countless hours of physiotherapy. Knowing that I was going to have plenty of time on my hands to write recipes (it was actually a full year later that I was finally able to discard my walking cane) I decided a recipe blog was a good thing to use up that free time and at least put it to some productive purpose.
With the able assistance of Spouse and an ocean of patience from her as well, many of the first 150 recipes or so were prepared and posted from that wheelchair. The chair barely fit through my narrow kitchen doorway and one of the strongest visual memories I have of that time is the paint being scraped from the kitchen door frame from the countless times that wheelchair was forced through it. I later graduated to an office chair on wheels pushed by a cane to move around the kitchen and finally to a high bar stool to reach counter top level before finally being able to stand for short periods to cook after about 6 months.
That all may sound a bit of an ordeal to some reading this but for me, who had routinely worked two jobs and about 60 hours a week for countless years before my accident, it was a bit of a lifesaver; the prospect of going from flat-out busy to dead stop was not one I would have handled well. Rock Recipes was something to focus on that would make the most of all that time and it certainly filled that purpose very well during those days.
A year after starting the website, I returned to college to study business for 3 years before returning to the workforce in my current position at Memorial University. Through it all, I continued to blog basically what our family was eating and our readership continued to steadily grow. On that first day, Rock Recipes had 169 page hits, all family and friends no doubt, whom I had emailed to go visit the site. Over 5 years later we now get tens of thousands of page hits a day and in the month heading up to Christmas just past, received just shy of 750,000 page hits. We certainly have come a long way.Thanks to all or our loyal followers and the many new fans of Rock Recipes who have made our humble little corner of the web such a great success. We really do appreciate each and every one of you for the kind words of support and encouragement we receive on a daily basis. You are the reason for our success and we will always keep that fact foremost in mind as we move forward toward even bigger and better things.
Not forgetting today's recipe, this show-stopping cheesecake just shouts celebration, doesn't it? Two whole cheesecakes, a chocolate and a vanilla, get stacked on top of one another before being crowned with a layer of fresh juicy strawberries and a drizzle of rich chocolate ganache. This double cheesecake serves up to 30 and would make the ideal birthday cake for a cheesecake lover; as indeed this one did in serving double duty at my office where it was quickly polished off to celebrate the anniversary of my work colleague Tish's 39th birthday. ;)
Chocolate Cheesecake Layer
Grease bottom but not sides of a 10 inch spring form pan. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper instead to more easily release the cheesecake from the pan.
Mix together and press into pan :
- 1 ½ cups Oreo Cookie Crumbs
- 1/3 cup melted butter
- 3 tbsp sugar
Cream together:
- 1 ½ pounds cream cheese ( three 8 oz (250 gram) pkgs)
- 3 squares unsweetened baking chocolate (In a pinch you can substitute 1/2 cup cocoa)
- 1 ¼ cups sugar
Add, one at a time:
- 3 eggs
Then add:
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cups whipping cream
Vanilla Cheesecake Layer
There is no crust layer for this part, instead, just line the bottom of a separate 10 inch spring form pan with parchment paper before you click the sides onto the pan.
Cream together:
- 3 eight ounce packages ounces cream cheese
- 1 cup sugar
Add, one at a time
- 3 eggs
beating well after each addition. Add
- 3 tsp good quality vanilla extract
Finally blend in
- 1 cup whipping cream
Pour into the prepared pan and bake in a bain marie at 300 degrees F for 60-70 minutes. The cheesecake does not have to brown at all in order to be fully baked; the surface of the cheesecake should lose any shine when the cake is properly baked. It can still be slightly wobbly just at the center at this point. Cool to room temperature before chilling completely in the fridge.
Both layers should be well chilled before assembling the final cheesecake. Run a sharp knife around the outside edge of each cheesecake to loosen them from the sides. Remove the chocolate bottom of the cheesecake from the pan and transfer it to your serving plate. While still in it's pan carefully invert the vanilla cheesecake onto the top of the chocoalte cheesecake. Remove the pan from the second cheesecake and peel off the parchment paper from the bottom of the vanilla cheesecake which is now the top of the dessert.
Cover the top of the cheesecake with:
- fresh ripe strawberries
Ganache Glaze
In a heavy bottomed pot, scald but do not boil:
- ¼ cup whipping cream
Then melt in on low heat, just until melted:
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Do not overheat the chocolate.
Drizzle over the strawberries or to create ganache lace, cool slightly and spoon into piping bag fitted with a number 3 tip. Pipe over the entire cake in a circular swirling pattern, repeating coverage all over the cake until all ganache glaze is used.
Note: Baking cheesecake in a bain marie.A word about baking a cheesecake in a bain marie. A bain marie is simply a water bath that buffers the direct heat from the sides and bottom of the baking pan to more evenly bake the cheesecake from the sides to the center.
I bake my cheesecakes in a 9 or 10 inch springform pan that has the bottom and sides wrapped in multiple layers of wide heavy duty aluminum foil which forms a sort of boat that the cheesecake pan sits in. The roll of aluminum foil that I use is about 16 inches wide. I use at least 4 layers of foil to make sure that no water leaks in and ruins the crust of my cheesecake. The aluminum foil wrapped pan is then placed inside a larger baking pan; I use a 12 inch cake pan. Boiling water is then poured into the larger pan filling it from 1/2 to 2/3 of the way to the top.
I find it best to pour the boiling water into the pan after it is placed on the rack in the oven as you are less likely to splash water onto the cheesecake or inside the aluminum foil. I reuse the aluminum foil for several future cheesecakes, adding a couple of layers to it each time just to be safe.
