I feel so bad that all my recent photos are so unattractively lit. I am doing the best I can with the type of light I get in my house during these winter months, but it really isn’t good enough. I should build myself a lightbox, or just do all my baking or cooking on bright Saturday afternoons. At least I’m somewhat comforted by the fact that we have about 30 more days left of this early darkness.

This tropical cheesecake lets in a little warmth and light into the kitchen though! Even in the dark, cold winter, the cake lets you have a badly-needed taste of the tropics. I made this for my mother’s birthday at the end of January. I wanted to remind everyone that it can’t be winter all the time, and because my parents were heading off in a few days to sunny Mexico, so why not have a preemptive taste of it?

This cheesecake is perfect in every way. Even Soli loved it, claiming it to be one of his favourite cakes, and he is not one of those cheesecake people. The filling uses plenty of cream cheese, and a whole can of coconut cream, not to be confused with coconut milk. Coconut cream is about $4 more expensive, and is a thick, amazingly sweet more condensed version of coconut milk. I could’ve sat down with the can and a spoon and been happy! I didn’t add any coconut to the filling, as I wanted a smoother texture, but I added extra coconut to the crust, and toasted up some more to sprinkle on the top before serving. All in all, the cake wasn’t at all overly coconuty, and it was in fact an understated flavor. I am happy I didn’t use sweetened coconut. The buttery graham cracker crust was heavenly.

The roasted pineapple I made and spooned on top before serving was a perfect touch and shouldn’t be skipped! I got the basic idea from the Bon Appetit: Desserts cookbook, and while some online reviews said this topping was cloyingly sweet, I didn’t find that at all! I did reduce the sugar and not use any rum, so the true sweetness of the pineapple popped out, and it was a juicy, light touch to an otherwise pretty rich dessert. Also, I definitely recommend buying a fresh pineapple and roasting that…don’t try to cheat using the canned ones!

In the end, this was a perfect cheesecake and a great taste of the tropics for a birthday cake in January.

Coconut Cheesecake with Honey-Roasted Pineapple
Adapted from Food Network and Bon Appetit: Desserts

COCONUT CHEESECAKE
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 cups usweetened shredded coconut, toasted
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature (4 8-0z packages, I used 2 regular and 2 light)
4 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsalted butter melted
1 15oz can cream of coconut (such as Coco Lopez)
1 cup whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Juice of 1 lemon

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Wrap outside of 9 inch diameter springform pan with with foil.

2. For the crust, mix graham cracker crumbs, 1 1/2 cups coconut, 1 tablespoon lemon juice and butter in small bowl. Press mixture onto bottom and up sides of pan.

3. For the filling, beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl until well blended.

4. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add cream of coconut, cream, vanilla extract and lemon juice and beat until well blended.

5. Pour filling into crust. Bake until puffed and set in center, about 1 hour 25 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool completely. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

6. Cut around pan sides to loosen cake. Remove pan sides.

7. Sprinkle remaining coconut around edge of cake and top each slice with some honey-roasted pineapple.

HONEY-ROASTED PINEAPPLE
1 extra-sweet pineapple, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch-thick rounds, cored
1 cup water
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons dark rum (optional; I did not use this)

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Place pineapple rings on large rimmed baking sheet.

2. Boil remaining ingredients in small saucepan 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Pour syrup over pineapple. Roast pineapple 12 minutes. Turn rings over; roast until tender and syrup thickens, turning rings every 5 minutes, about 20 minutes longer.

4. Cool pineapple on sheet. Cut into 1/3-inch cubes; transfer pineapple and syrup to bowl. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Chill.)

So it’s been a while, been though I had claimed it wouldn’t be. We just haven’t been cooking or baking as much these days…combine this with the fact that there are numerous keys no longer working on our keyboard and you get very little inclination to write.

I did do some kitchen-stuff this past weekend though, so I’ll suffer through non-functioning letters to write about the birthday cake I prepared for my sister’s birthday (the meal, a wild mushroom lasagna, will follow shortly, but dessert always takes precedence!): Dorie Greenspan’s Low and Lush Chocolate Cheesecake with Cappuccino Swirl.

This cake is one good cheeseake – an exellent go-to recipe whenever you’re looking for an utterly decadent, rich cheesecake. Even the simple graham cracker rust is fantastic! The whole thing is amazingly smooth, feeling like velvet on the tongue. It’s verrrry chocolately, and tastes even better the net day, so I recommend you make it a day in advance.

I took Dorie’s “Playing Around” tip and added a cappuccino (well, coffee, since I didn’t have any instant cappuccino powder) swirl to it. Visually, it didn’t add much, but taste-wise, it added what I consider to be a necessary dimension to the cake. It definitely cut the sweetness of the cake as well.

The cake says it serves 8, but those would be some big pieces! It would easily serve 12, if not more.

It’s a perfect cheesecake, and a breeze to prepare. If chocolate and coffee is a dream combination for you, you’ll love this cake.

Low and Lush Chocolate Cheesecake with Cappuccino Swirl
adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours
Makes 8 servings (more like 16!)
Printable Recipe

CRUST
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

FILLING
1 1/2 pounds (three 8-ounce packages) cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
3 large eggs, preferably at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and slightly cooled

CAPPUCCINO SWIRL
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder (I used instant coffee)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons boiling water.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8 1/2- or 9-inch springform pan and put the pan on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat.

CRUST
1. Stir the crumbs, sugar and cinnamon together in a medium bowl. Pour over the melted butter and stir until all of the dry ingredients are uniformly moist. (I do this with my fingers.) Turn the crumbs into the pan and, with your fingers, press the crumbs evenly over the bottom of the pan and as far up the sides as they’ll go. Freeze the crust for about 10 minutes.

2. Bake for 10 minutes, only until the crust is lightly set and just tinged with color. Cool on a rack or refrigerate while you make the filling. Keep the oven at 350 degrees F.

FILLING
1. Cut each bar of cream cheese into quarters and toss the pieces into a food processor, along with the sugar. Process, scraping down the bowl 2 or 3 times, for a full 2 minutes. You’ll see how dramatically the cream cheese changes; it will look like white velvet at the end of its beating. Add the eggs, vanilla and salt and give the batter 4 longish pulses, the scrape down the bowl and pulse 2 more times. Pour in the chocolate and pulse and scrape a few times to blend the batter well.

2. Remove the bowl from the processor and rap it hard on the counter a couple of times to de-bubble the batter. Scrape the batter into the cooled crust.

3. Bake the cheesecake for 35 to 40 minutes if you are using a 9-inch pan or 45 to 50 minutes if you are using an 8 1/2-inch pan. The top should be puffed and set, but if you tap the pan gently, the center of the cake will still be a little shaky–that’s just fine. Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and allow the cheesecake to cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for at least 8 hours or for up to 3 days.
Run a blunt knife between the crust and sides of the pan, then open and remove the sides of the springform.

CAPPUCCINO SWIRL
1. Make a cinnamon-espresso syrup by whisking together 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon instant espresso powder and 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon and mixing in 2 tablespoons boiling water. Cool to tepid or room temperature.

2. Spoon about 1/3 of the cheesecake batter (I did this prior to adding the chocolate to it) into a measuring cup with a spout and stir in the syrup. Pour the remaining batter into the crust, then pour over the cappuccino batter, pouring so that it creates a swirl pattern in the chocolate. For good measure, take a tableknife and give the 2 batters a few extra swirls.

STORING
Wrapped well, the cheesecake will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. It can be frozen for up to 2 months; defrost, still wrapped, overnight in the refrigerator.

If you like this, you might also like:

Cheesecake Pops
Super Layer Chocolate Cake
Cinnamon Squares

First, let me say that cheesecake is my absolute favourite dessert. I loooove cheesecake. Cheesecake makes me happy, and can cheer me out of any bad mood (which has been proven on more than one occasion).

Secondly, I have to admit to being afraid to attempt this month’s Daring Bakers challenge, Cheesecake Pops from Jill O’Connor‘s Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey, chosen by Elle at Feeding My Enthusiasm and Deborah at Taste and Tell. I was even considering sitting it out. It seemed too much work, too many ingredients to buy…but after doing it, I’m so happy I fumbled my way through it. The results were absolutely, utterly delicious, in every way.

I only made one third of the recipe, since all I had were two packages of cream cheese (and only two people to eat the pops!) Even though thirding the five eggs and the egg yolks proved to be tricky, the cake was perfect. I baked it in an 8″ round pan, and it took about 50-60 minutes to bake properly. The cheesecake recipe itself was a perfect cheesecake recipe. I made sure to leave some in the pan to snack on – I didn’t want to sacrifice it all to the pop.

Scooping out balls of cheesecake was messy, and it was even messier to roll them into balls. I used bamboo skewers instead of lollipop sticks, and they worked well.

The dipping process was fun! I really liked what the vegetable shortening did for the chocolate – an important ingredient that I wouldn’t skip. I didn’t go crazy with the toppings, keeping it relatively simple. In the end, I wound up with three types of pops:

1. Plain chocolate – fantastic, with a nice snap to the chocolate coating. I loved the contrast between the cake and the chocolate.

2. Chocolate and graham cracker crumbs – even better than the ones with chocolate only. I enjoyed the extra texture, and all the flavours worked really well together.

3. Chocolate and plum preserves – I was originally going to use cherry, but plum was on sale. For some, I dipped the pop into the preserves, then into the chocolate. It was pretty messy and sticky going; the chocolate didn’t adhere as well to a plum-dipped pop. For some others, I drizzled chocolate and the plum preserves; these worked out better. I liked the fruit addition, and would definitely try that again.

There are lots of other combos I would’ve liked to try, but with only a few pops, I kept it simple. My only real issue was that I put the pops, post-dip, back on parchment paper, so they got a flat edge on the bottom. Then, if I took a bite of one, the other half of the pop would fall off the stick. If I were to make these again, I would skip the lollipop aspect, and just make bonbon type bites out of them.

These were a lot of work, but fun work, and the results were great, so I would probably make the effort again. At the very least, I have a new and very successful cheesecake recipe!

Cheesecake Pops
Adapted from Jill O’Connor’s Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey
Makes 30 – 40 Pops

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature
2 cups sugar
¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
5 large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
¼ cup heavy cream

Boiling water as needed

Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks (I used bamboo skewers)

1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionary coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening (this ingredient is so important to get the right texture for dipping these!)

(Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible)

Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) – Optional

CHEESECAKE
1. Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.

2. In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.

3. Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes (mine took almost an hour, for an 8″ round pan)

4. Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

POPS
5. When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

6. When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.

Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

7. Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.

8. Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

Thanks Deborah and Elle, for choosing a great, fun and challenging recipe!