Happy Belated Valentine’s Day, everyone! This Valentine’s Day was pre-empted by 16 inches of snow on the 13th. That may not seem like a lot of snow to you Mid-Westerners, but that is TON of snow in our part of Maryland. Schools were closed on Thursday and Friday. My son didn’t get to hand out his cool Thor valentines to his class. They already have off on Monday and Tuesday, due to a scheduled vacation. I don’t know if they’ll do any heart things when they all finally meet on Wednesday. We’ll send them along and see what happens. Our snowy Valentine’s also meant some advanced planning for the adults in the house. Luckily, we both got our cards and gifts early, so we were able to celebrate on Friday. We were also able to enjoy the chocolate cheesecake. It was a perfect Valentine’s Day treat.
You may have noticed that my cheesecakes looked a little different than the recipe. I knew we would never eat an entire cheesecake, so I halved the recipe and made individual ones (which are easy to freeze). I used 4 inch ramekins and the batter fit perfectly into 7. Unfortunately, my 13 x 9 inches pyrex dish only fit 6 ramekins. I put the extra one in the fridge and baked it in the water bath after the first batch came out.
I made a cookie crumb crust using 1 1/2 cups of oreo crumbs, 3 Tablespoons of melted butter and 2 teaspoons of sugar. I mixed it together and pressed it into the bottom of the greased ramekins. Then I put the ramekins on a baking sheet and baked them at 350° for about 9 minutes. I let them cool while I mixed up the cheesecake filling.
There are lots of cheesecake styles out there. All are rich, but some are creamy, others have a light, almost whipped, texture and some are dense and rich. This cheesecake fell into the latter category. I was a little concerned that I had miscalculated something, since my batter was so thick I had to scoop is like ice cream. I wasn’t able to completely smooth the tops, but they evened out during baking. I think this recipe was very successful, even if I did go my own way. I would make this one again. What did you guys think?