Today I'm sharing a recipe for a truly delicious cheesecake topped with a rather unique chocolate mousse — I added cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg to it. Unusual, right? Unusual, but incredibly tasty! Rich chocolate flavor with a light, warming spiced finish! I made the cheesecake itself using the standard method with cream cheese (that's a Philadelphia-style cheese, like Almette or similar). By the way, I didn't add any flour or starch to the cheesecake batter — though most cheesecakes are made with one or the other, you can absolutely skip them. The result is a bit different: the texture turns out even more melt-in-your-mouth and delicate. But if you prefer the classic style, slightly firmer, go ahead and add 10 g of starch or 15 g of flour to the batter. On top, I generously piled on whipped cream, which creates a wonderful contrast with the chocolate layer. It turned out absolutely delicious! With its warm, spiced finish, this dessert is a perfect fit for Christmas and New Year's — though it'll be just as wonderful on any other winter day!
Ingredients:
- Crust:
- 150 g shortbread cookies
- 50 g butter
- 0.5 tsp cinnamon
- 0.5 tsp ginger
- Cheese Layer:
- 400 g cream cheese (or smooth, creamy cottage cheese)
- 100 g heavy cream 33%
- 120 g sugar
- 10 g vanilla sugar
- 2 eggs
- Chocolate Mousse:
- 400 g heavy cream 33%
- 120 g chocolate (I used 56%)
- 50 g powdered sugar
- 5 g gelatin + 50 ml water
- 0.5 tsp cinnamon
- 0.5 tsp ginger
- 0.3 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tbsp cognac (optional)
- Also:
- 200 g heavy cream 33%
- 1-2 tsp powdered sugar
- 20 g chocolate
How to cook cheesecake with spiced chocolate mousse
Place the cookies, cinnamon, and ginger in a food processor and pulse into fine crumbs. Pour the melted butter over the cookie crumbs and pulse everything together again.
Pour the crumb mixture into your pan (set aside one tablespoon of crumbs for topping) — I used a 20 cm ring — and press it firmly into an even layer on the bottom. Place the pan in an oven preheated to 160°C and bake for 10–15 minutes. Let cool.
Make the cheese layer. Place the room-temperature cream cheese in a bowl and beat briefly with a hand mixer. Add the sugar, vanilla sugar, and eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Pour in the heavy cream and mix gently — just until combined, without incorporating too much air. The batter is ready. If you're using cottage cheese, blend it thoroughly with an immersion blender until completely smooth. If your cottage cheese is lumpy, press it through a fine-mesh strainer first. The finished batter should have absolutely no grainy bits!
Pour the batter into the pan. Place in an oven preheated to 160°C (bottom heat only) and bake for approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes.
For baking, create a water bath — set the pan inside a larger pan filled with hot water. Since I was using a ring, I went with a simplified version and just placed a pan of hot water on the rack below the cheesecake. The cheesecake is done when the center still has a slight jiggle. Leave the finished cheesecake to cool in the oven with the heat turned off and the door slightly ajar. Then refrigerate for about an hour or longer.
Make the chocolate mousse. Pour about one-third of the heavy cream into a heavy-bottomed saucepan, add the cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg, and heat until hot but not boiling. Pour the hot cream over the broken-up chocolate and start stirring. At first it will look like this.
Then it will look like this. Keep stirring until the chocolate is completely melted. Bloom the gelatin in 50 ml of water and let it sit for 10 minutes, or for the time indicated on the package. Then heat it until hot so the gelatin dissolves, and stir it into the chocolate mixture. Add the cognac and stir to combine.
Whip the remaining heavy cream with the powdered sugar until quite thick. Fold it into the room-temperature chocolate mixture in small additions.
Once fully set, warm the sides of the pan with a hair dryer or run a thin knife along the inside edge, unclasp the springform ring, and transfer the cheesecake to a serving plate.
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