Baking has long been a hobby for Isabelle Jean-Obrien, vice president of marketing and business development for Summit Care. “Coming from a first-generation French family, cooking, specifically baking desserts, draws me in. As a working mom of two young kids, I don’t get the opportunity as much as I would like, so when my new team at TimberRidge needed a cheesecake for the Cheesecake Battle, I jumped in. I had never baked a cheesecake before, but thought, why not? My Espresso Cheesecake, which was named the Grand Champion, was a mixture of a couple of recipes and I needed it to be perfection for the cause, which was raising money for Alzheimer’s research and a cure.”
Espresso Cheesecake
Espresso Cookie Crust:
1 box chocolate cookies, fillings removed (I used Oreos)
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
4 tablespoons sugar
3/4 cup salted butter, melted
Espresso Cheesecake Filling:
12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons espresso powder
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 to 2 tablespoons Kona Coffee Liqueur
Espresso Ganache:
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup dark or semisweet chocolate chips
1 tsp Kona Coffee Liqueur
1 teaspoon espresso powder
Whipped Cream:
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon espresso powder
To make the crust, if you use Oreos, remove the filling and crush them in a food processor. Add about one teaspoon of espresso powder, 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup butter and mix. It should stick together, but not be crumbly. Add a bit more butter if needed.
Press the crust dough into a spring form pan and press firmly around the bottom and build a slight wall on the sides. Refrigerate.
For the filling, mix ½ cup of sugar and one cup heavy cream and beat until stiff. In a separate bowl, put ½ of the cream cheese and whip until smooth. Add two eggs and beat until mixed. Added the whipped cream to the cream cheese mixture. Add 1 tablespoon of instant espresso powder and 1 or 2 tablespoons of Kona Coffee liqueur. Use a spoon to mix, then pour into the crust.
A water bath is important in making cheesecake. I wrapped my pan in aluminum foil. Fill a large baking pan with about 1 inch of water and set the wrapped cheesecake in the pan. Place in an oven preheated to 350 and cook 20 minutes. Check for consistency and cook a bit longer if needed. Remove from oven and place in freezer.
To make the ganache, put about ½ of the bag of semisweet chocolate in a glass bowl and set over an almost boiling pot of water or use a double boiler. Add about ½ cup of heavy cream and stir as the morsels melt. Stir in 1 tablespoon espresso powder and 1 teaspoon of coffee liqueur and let sit.
For the espresso whipped cream, put 2 cups of heavy cream in a bowl with ½ cup of sugar and beat. Remove about 1 cup into a separate bowl and gently stir in about 1 tablespoon of espresso powder.
Get the cheesecake and spread a layer of ganache on top and put it back in the freezer for about 5 minutes.
Remove the cheesecake from the pan. Put the traditional whipped cream in a piping bag and make a thin layer across the top. Put the espresso whipped cream in another piping bag and make peaks on the outside and put some in the middle. Put a dark chocolate covered espresso bean in each peak and use broken Oreos to make a cookie peak in the middle. Sift a light dusting of espresso powder on top.
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