Black Forest Cheesecake

Recipe:

Ingredient notes:

• Sour cherries. Both fresh and frozen berries will work. The weight in the recipe is for pitted cherries.
  If you are cooking with frozen cherries, you can put them in a saucepan with sugar without thawing them. However, frozen cherries cannot be used for decoration. You will need a fresh berry (sour or sweet cherries) or cocktail cherries.
• Cream cheese. Any cream cheese will work. But before you make the filling, check its consistency. If the cheese is very soft, you can change the ratio of cheese to cream to even out the consistency of the filling: add more cheese and less cream.
• Heavy cream. You need heavy cream with a fat content of 30% or more. Leave 20% for sauces – it is too liquid for that purpose. In the filling, you can substitute sour cream with a minimum fat content of 25%.
• Chocolate. For the cheesecake filling, it is optimal to use chocolate with about 60-70% cocoa. This will give the most balanced taste. It can be bars or chocolate in callets or chips. For decoration you can use any type of chocolate you like.
• Eggs. The size of the eggs is M. This is about 50-55 grams without shells.
• Starch. This recipe uses cornstarch. It has a milder thickening ability than potato starch. Another advantage is the complete absence of foreign flavors in the finished dessert.
  If you are out of options and want to use potato starch, use half as much as cornstarch.
• Sugar. It is better if it is fine. If the crystals are too large, you can grind it in a coffee grinder or use ready-made powdered sugar.
• Cookie base. “Oreo” is just perfect with cherries. So I would not recommend substituting it. But if you can’t get that kind of cookie, use any chocolate shortbread or butter cookie – it will be delicious, too, though easier to combine.
• Gelatin. I usually use sheet gelatin soaked in cold water without any special proportions. If you have powdered or granulated gelatin, it needs water in a 1 to 6 ratio – so for 7 grams of gelatin in the recipe, you need 42 grams of cold water to soak it.

Let’s start cooking.

Cherry layer.

Mix the cherries with the sugar and place on a low heat. Bring to a boil, wait for the sugar to dissolve, and add the cornstarch diluted in cold water. Cook over high heat until the cherry juice begins to thicken. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

Cookie base.

Split the Oreo’s in half and remove the filling. You should end up with 150 grams of cookies.

Put the cookies in a food processor and grind them into crumbs. You can also do this by putting the cookies in a plastic bag and rolling them with a rolling pin.

Melt the butter and add to the crumbs. Stir. Spread the mixture and press down the bottom of the springform pan.

Bake in a preheated oven at 170°C (340°F) for 10 minutes. Take out and let cool. Reduce the temperature to 150°C (300 °F).

Chocolate filling.

Cream the cheese with sugar.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the heavy cream and beat again.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler or microwave.

Fold the chocolate into the filling.

Place the cherry filling on top of the cookie crust.

Spread chocolate filling on top and spread evenly.

Place in the oven with a pan of boiling water on the bottom and bake for about 40 minutes. When you tap the ready cheesecake on the side of the pan with a spoon, only the center should jiggle.

Remove the finished cheesecake from the oven and cool on the counter to room temperature. Then refrigerate for one hour.

Сream cheese mousse.

Soak the gelatin in cold water.

Combine condensed milk and cream cheese and stir until smooth.

Melt the gelatin. Add a tablespoon of the cheese mixture and stir. Add a few more tablespoons and stir again.

This manipulation is necessary to gradually equalize the temperature difference between the gelatin and the cream cheese mixture.

Add the gelatin mixture to the remaining cheese mixture and stir.

Whip the heavy cream to medium peaks.

Gently fold the cheese mixture into the whipped cream with a spatula.

Pour the mousse over the cooled chocolate layer and spread it out.

To carefully remove the cheesecake with the set mousse from the pan, use a cake collar to line the sides of the pan.

Place the cheesecake in the refrigerator until the mousse has set completely, at least 4 hours, or overnight.

Whipped cream (Chantilly cream).

When the mousse has stabilized, proceed to the final decoration.

Whip the cold heavy cream until stiff. Add powdered sugar at the end and beat on low speed.

Transfer the cream to a piping bag and pipe the cream over the mousse. Place a fresh or cocktail cherry on top of each cream rosette.

Garnish the center with grated chocolate.

Slice and serve the cheesecake.

Enjoy!