Baked Mocha Marble Cheesecake

I found this cake in At Home with Amy Beh 3. Amy Beh is one of my favorite local chefs and I faithfully follow her cooking column in The Star and I have bought 3 of her cookbooks. When I looked at the recipe, my heart skipped a beat. The egg separation method brought back memories of my many failed attempts with Cotton Soft Japanese Cheesecake. 

Deep cracks that broke my heart.

I need not have been so afraid because this cake has double the amount of cream cheese and is therefore much denser than CSJC and more stable in structure. But still, look at the cracks above :( This is in spite of me baking the cake in a water bath. However, after the cake cooled down and shrank a little, the cracks were hardly noticeable.

Miraculously, the cracks "disappeared".

The texture of this cake is a cross between American style cheesecake and Japanese cheesecake. My only complaint is that the coffee flavour is a bit too strong. The recipe says to mix 20g of melted chocolate with 3 teaspoons of instant coffee granules. I used 2 teaspoons and I still found the coffee overpowering with a slight bitter taste. I would adjust to only 1 teaspoon in future.

The chocolate coffee mixture is supposed to be piped in circles on top of the cake. Then you are supposed to use a skewer to draw lines to create a design. I opted to just spoon the mixture on top and used a butter knife to create swirls. It's a lot easier hee..hee...Besides I am a disaster with a piping bag.

This is a whole lot easier than piping. You can make a mess and it still looks good.

Overall, I would say that this is a nice cheesecake and I would consider increasing the chocolate a bit more and reducing the coffee. The cake does not rise very high on the oven and in terms of shrinkage, it is very minimal.

I was quite happy as I had a nice domed top and the cake looked very presentable. I would definitely bake it again even though I find the water bath a bit troublesome. 

Baked Marble Mocha Cheesecake

Recipe source : At Home with Amy Beh 3 (page 114)
(My modifications and notes in red)

Ingredients :
- 20g cooking chocolate
- 3 tsp instant coffee powder (I used 2 tsp and found the coffee quiet strong)
- 1 tbsp milk
- 500g cream cheese
- 100g castor sugar (I reduced to 70g)
- 200g thickened or whipping cream
- 5 egg yolks
- 100g superfine flour (I used 120g)
- 20g plain flour (I omitted)
- Grated rind of 1 lemon (I omitted)
- tsp vanilla essence
- 5 egg whites
- 65 castor sugar
- 1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice (I omitted)

Method :
1. Grease sides and line the base of a 22cm (8") round cake pan with greased baking paper. Preheat oven to 150C. (I used 130C)
2. Put chocolate, instant coffee and milk in a small saucepan. Melt ingredients oven a gentle low heat. Leave aside to cool completely.
3. Beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Blend in whipping cream and beat until well combined.
4. Add egg yolks one at a time and beat between additions.
5. Sift in both flours and add the lemon rind and vanilla essence to mix.
6. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until foamy. Gradually add sugar and lemon juice and whisk until soft peaks form.
7. Gradually fold 1/3 of the egg white into the cheese mixture then fold in remaining egg white until just combined.
8. Remove 1 quarter portion of the mixture and stir in chocolate coffee mixture to mix. Put into a piping bag.
9. Pour half portion of the plain mixture into the prepared pan. Pipe wide zig-zag patterns of chocolate coffee cheese mixture over the plain mixture.
10. Top up with the remaining plain mixture and with the remaining chocolate coffee mixture, pipe circles over the surface of the plain batter. Use a sharp satay skewer to draw lines outwards to create a design of your own,
11. Place cake pan in water bath and bake for 1 hour 40 minutes of until firm and golden. Turn off the oven and leave the cake in the oven for 25-30 minutes with the door closed. Remove the water bath from the oven and leave the cake to cool completely in the oven with the door ajar. Cover the cake pan and refrigerate for several hours before serving

Note : I did not pipe the chocolate cheese mixture but merely put dollops onto the surface of the cake and swirled using a butter knife.

This post is also linked to Cook-Your-Books #6 hosted by Joyce of Kitchen Flavours.