A Berry Sweet Birthday

In addition to usual indulgent celebrations that encompass the Thanksgiving holiday, it was Joe's birthday!  Instead of sticking candles into a pumpkin pie, I tried to make something he would truly love.  This man adores raspberries, with fond memories of picking them from his grandmothers' gardens in Slovakia. So I decided to make those tart little berries into something grand that would separate birthday from holiday. A Double-Decker Raspberry and White Chocolate Cheesecake perhaps?

He liked!

This cake requires patient preparation of many ingredients, but keep in mind that the end result is worth every minute. If you enjoy spending time in the kitchen, this recipe is an excellent way to spend a lazy weekend morning with a fresh pot of coffee.  I have posted the link for the recipe below, but use the following pictures to help guide yourself through the written directions.

Cheesecake Part 1: Making the crust.
You need chocolate wafers and butter. Don't forget your handy dandy food processor! It will make things much much easier.

Simple crust ingredients.

Double layer of aluminum foil surrounds this cheesecake pan. 

Process the cookies into crumbs, then pulse the crumbs with
melted butter until evenly moist.
My batch needed a bit of stirring, as the dry crumbs
hid at the edges of the processor bin. 

Carefully press into the bottom of the pan and bake.
Crust = done.

Cheesecake Part 2: Preparing "the goods."
Real raspberries and white chocolate are the two ingredients that make this recipe so exceptional! To melt your chocolate without burning it, put water in a pan and bring to a simmer. Place a smaller pan containing your chocolate on top of the water and watch it melt to perfection. As for the berries, frozen work just fine! The recipe asks you to process/blend the entire bag, however, you really only need 1/2 cup of the drained output. Therefore, I would recommend only processing half of them, that way you can save the rest for smoothies, or perhaps another cheesecake!

I processed my raspberries while they were still frozen.
They were easier to work with, in my opinion, since there
is less juice slashing and dripping everywhere.

You only need 1/2 cup of blended, drained raspberries.
I'm going to make some raspberry ice cream with the extra berries!

Cheesecake Part 3: Creaming the cream cheese

Cream cheese is the heart and soul of cheesecake. This recipe requires 4-8 oz. boxes of the stuff. I tried substituting half with the "1/3 less fat" variety.  The texture was still thick and creamy (sometimes lesser fat products can screw up things in ways you never expect).  Other ingredients are as shown below, such as flour, sugar, whipping cream, eggs, and vanilla and almond extracts.  First, a basic sweet cream cheese batter is prepared, followed by separation into two bowls for the two layers of flavors.

A large bowl is needed to make the basic filling batter
using all of the ingredients EXCEPT almond extract.

Carefully portion 2 1/4 cups of the basic creamy batter
to a second large bowl.

Now that the basic batter is in two bowls, it is time to stir in "the goods" to create two separate flavors that will become unique cake layers: white chocolate and raspberry.

The melted white chocolate was stirred into the batter on the
left, while the pressed raspberries PLUS the almond extract
were stirred into the batter on the right. 

Cheesecake Part 4: Bake the cake

The flavors are baked separately, all while resting the cheesecake pan in a water bath. I used my turkey roasting pan for this. First batter up: raspberry! Then for the home run, the white chocolate mixture is poured ontop and baked to perfection. 

The raspberry layer bakes about 50 min, followed
by the white chocolate layer, which bakes another 30 min.

Let this cake sit for a bit to set, then refrigerate for at least
4 hours before diving in with a knife!
For this reason, this cake is wonderful to prepare ahead of time.

Cheesecake Part 5: Grabbing a berry sweet slice.
This part needs no further explanations...

Double-decker Raspberry and White Chocolate Cheesecake

For the full recipe, click HERE.