Rich Chocolate Cheesecake

I forgot to take a picture of the finished cheesecake, but here's  a picture of half of the cheese cake. Chocolate cookie crust, chocolate cheesecake, topped with a chocolate ganache. It's a bit mangled looking because I dropped it while taking it out of the fridge.  Recently I've been quite clumsy in the kitchen. I've woken up Mike and Butters from naps because they hear things crashing to the ground in our kitchen.

There are some desserts that I feel are better off bought from the store.  Chiffon cake from Liliha Bakery is one of them, cheesecake is another. I think that those frozen Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes are pretty tasty and are a great deal versus spending the money for ingredients and time in the kitchen.  A friend requested cheesecake for his birthday, so I whipped out my springfoam pan that my mom bought me and went to work.

I used a bag of chocolate animal crackers as my cookie base. It was kind of funny. While Mike was eating the cheesecake at our friend's house, he asked me what I made the crust out of.  Then something clicked in his brain. He realized why we had half a bag of chocolate animal crackers on the counter. We usually do not have store-bought cookies lying around the house and assumed that it had been a pregnancy craving (although I haven't been having those cravings and am starting to think that "pregnancy cravings" are a myth).

Here's my chocolate wafer crust.  Ground chocolate cookies and butter. 

So, I realized that I did not have instant coffee (Mike and I do not drink coffee), so I ended up brewing a  bit of coffee and adding that into the cheesecake mixture.  The recipe called for 1 t of instant coffee. I think I threw in 2 Tablespoons of strong brewed coffee.

Yum yum yum! The surface was not as smooth as I would have liked, but that's the beauty of a chocolate ganache layer.  It covered up my mess.  

Mike thinks that this could be my signature dessert to bring over to potlucks. He said that it tasted good, and impressed people because it looked professional.  I feel pretty neutral about cheesecakes. They are not very exciting to make, but hey if I can look like a superstar by bringing this semi-professional dessert to parties, I'm all for it.  I'd just like to tweak the recipe a bit and make a heavy more NY-style cheesecake instead.