Almond Truffle Cheesecake

Instructions

Heat oven to 425°F. Place a baking pan on the bottom shelf of the oven to preheat.

Combine vanilla wafers, ground almonds, 1/4 cup sugar, and butter. Stir well. Press firmly on bottom of 9-inch springform pan. Set aside.

Combine cheese until fluffy in a large mixing bowl. with remaining 1-1/4 cups sugar, cornstarch, and cocoa until smooth. Add 12 oz. melted chocolate, almons extract, and vanilla extractbeating well. Add eggs, amaretto, and whipping cream, mixing well. Pour mixture into prepared pan.

Toss 8-10 ice cubes into baking pan. Reduce heat. Set springform pan on center shelf. Bake at 250°F for 55-60 minutes or until outside is set but center 3 inches still wobbles. Remove from oven to rack. Cool completely in a draft-free area. Loosen cake from pan with warm, dry knife, leave sides intact. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.

To Serve:
Remove sides of pan and place on serving plate. Dust with powdered sugar. Drizzle 3 oz. melted chocolate over cheesecake in a pattern of your choice. Dip half of each whole almond in remaining 1 oz. melted chocolate and arrange on cheesecake.

Optional:
Whipped cream florets.

Author's Comments

I started with Kathleen Morrison's recipe, then found her other one, then sort of combined the two along with some suggestions from Sarah Phillips (http://www.baking911.com) and came up with the following combination recipe.

First, just about everything that could go wrong with the original recipe, did. But it's not all my fault! And it still turned out OK (that means Nila likes it).

1. Notice the first word in the title "Almond". It doesn't taste like any were there at all. Makes a nice chocolate cheesecake, which my wife really enjoys. I wanted almonds, dammit! Next time, 2 tsp of almond extract and 1 tsp of vanilla extract will probably produce the desired result.

2. I did it on our houseboat. last Wednesday, and didn't find out until too late that there was a before-Thanksgiving bass tounament going on in the California Delta that day. Bass boats dig a big hole in the water when they go buy at 1500 or so rpm and substantially rock a 56' houseboat such as ours, even though they think they don't think they do. This creates cheesecake slosh and lotsa not-for-publication comments from the baker while both are cooking.

3. I beat the batter too agressively. I whipped way too much air into the cake and, of course, it fell an inch or so upon cooling. If I do it again on the boat, I'll use a silicon spatula to push down the sides and gently fold the mixture, usine the hand mizer much more sparingly. I use a KitechenAid mixer at home and got really spoiled by the way it works. I don't control hand mizers really well.

4. I cooked it too hot. 350° is right for most baking, but cheesecake is more custard-like and less cake-like, so it needs to be cooler. Maybe 325°.

5. I cooked it too dry. Sarah Phillips, doyen of http://www.baking911.com, suggests heating a baking pan on the bottom shelf of the oven and tossing in some ice cubes when you put the springform in to bake on a middle shelf. She does not like waterbaths, and this seems like a really good solution to me. I forgot to do this.

6. I over-cooked it. Sarah also suggests ¼ cup of cornstarch with the sugar to compensate for overbaking, which I also did. She suggests that the cake is done when it still jiggles 3" from the center. I'll take her word for it because she's been right on everything else I screwed up.

7. Presentation Next time, I'll sift some confectioner's sugar to dust over the top, the drizzle the chocolate in either a zig-zag or a swirl pattern over the powdered sugar. Melted chocolate on a chocolate cake is a bit too severe for me.

Kathleen Morrison lists 2 almond cheesecake recipes on Foodgeeks, and I think the following combination of the two will work quite nicely and provide the taste we want.

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