For nothing better to do today, I decided to try my hand on baking a cheesecake. I saw this recipe months ago and clipped it.
Ingredients:
7 oz. pkg. cannoli shells
3 tbsp unsalted butter melted
2 tbsp sugar
4 cups whole milk ricotta cheese
1 ½ cups sugar
¼ c flour
½ whipping cream
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp orange zest
5 large eggs
1/3 mini chocolate chips
Confectioner sugar for sprinkling
A handful of chocolate chips for sprinkling
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9 inch springform pan with parchment.
- Crush cannoli shells (food processor works best), add butter and 2 tablespoons sugar and continue to pulse until med-fine crumbs
- Press crumbs firmly onto bottom of pan. Bake 10 minutes. Let cool.
- Beat ricotta cheese, remaining sugar and flour in bowl of electric mixer on medium until well blended. Add whipping cream, vanilla, zest and chocolate chips. Mix well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing just until blended after each addition. Pour over crust.
- Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, then sprinkle top with a handful of chocolate chips delicately, pressing chips in lightly. Continue to bake 10 more minutes or until center is almost set. Run knife around rim of pan to loosen cake.
- Cool before removing rim of pan. Refrigerate for 4 hours or more. Before serving sprinkle with confectioner sugar.
- Top with whipped cream if desired. Store leftovers in refrigerator. Serves. 10.
Please note:
I don’t usually follow any given recipe. Somehow I always tweak it to suit what I have on hand in the kitchen. Same thing happened here when I baked this Cannoli Chocolate Cheesecake.
I didn’t have all the ingredients on hand so I improvised. Since I didn’t have cannoli shells, I used 16 ice cream sugar cones instead. I also used regular butter, not unsalted. For whipping cream, I used Cool Whip. For orange zest, I used the orange zest from the Orange malmalade. I added the last ingredient which was not in the original recipe.
I’m not a baker also so I don’t own all the baker’s gadgets so I also improvised. I don’t have a food processor so I crushed the ice cream cone inside a zip lock bag and mixed everything by hand using big wooden spoon.
They came out pretty good and quite delicious. Not bad for a first try.
Until next time. Stop and smell the roses.
Rosalinda R Morgan 