Hubby was chatting with a coworker and she had a bag full of tupperware in her office. Hubby asked “What’s all that?” he was lucky enough to receive some of “that”! A huge tupperware container full of home-grown raspberries. His coworker received them from another coworker and so on and so forth. She assured him that she would still have plenty for herself and showed him an even larger tupperware filled to the brim with raspberries — Lucky us!

I wanted to use the berries up right away and knew exactly what/when/how and why!

I made a Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake with Chocolate crust for a certain someone who jut loves raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries, etc… and couldn’t find a good slice of cheesecake after a long day of being a handyman and working on our house! (Shhhh don’t tell him it’s a surprise.)

Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake with Chocolate Crust
(From TastyKitchen)
Ingredients
2 cups Oreo Crumbs
1 stick Butter, Melted
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
24 ounces, weight Cream Cheese
1 cup Sugar
3 whole Eggs
1 cup Heavy Cream
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
8 ounces, weight Raspberries, Fresh Or Defrosted If Frozen
3 Tablespoons Sugar

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

Mix together the crust ingredients (first 4 ingredients) and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too – baker’s choice. Set crust aside.

Combine cream cheese and second amount of sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream and second amount of vanilla, blend until smooth and creamy. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface.

Place raspberries in a food processor and blend it until combined. Pass it through a fine mesh and discard the seeds. Add sugar and mix well to incorporate it. Use about 2/3 of the sauce on the batter and the rest as a sauce to be served on the side.

Incorporate the sauce to the batter after pouring the batter into the pan. The best way of doing this is by the tablespoon full, going around the cake pan. After this is done, use a chopstick or a knife to swirl the sauce in the cheesecake until it creates a nice pattern.

Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done – this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top.

After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

My wedding cake tests were successful. The cake was delicious and beautiful. I used Wilton’s White Cake recipe, I used a delicious Swiss Buttercream frosting from Smitten Kitchen and my own homemade strawberry preserves were in the middle.

The only modification I made to the frosting recipe was that I used pasteurized egg whites (egg white in a carton). These worked great and the frosting was super easy to work with. The sweetness to butter ratio is right on the money!

Photos courtesy of Mercetta