Chocolate Tofu Cheesecake With Berry Glaze

The April 2009 Daring Baker's challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.
The blend and bake cheesecake was by far the easiest daring baker's challenge for me.I used store-bought crust and substituted three quarters of the cheese with silken tofu.The chocolate flavor and the berry glaze made this a memorable dessert served up on memorable family meet up with my dear brother and his family during the spring break.The idea of dessert in Tofu sounded odd at first ,but surprisingly the silken tofu blends in so well in this cheese cake,you'll never know this dessert is low fat and luscious at the same time with added nutrition of Tofu.

Ingredients for
Crust:

* 1 1/2 cups chocolate graham cracker crumbs
* 3 tablespoons canola oil
Or use Store-bought graham cracker or Oreo 9 inch pie crust

Cheesecake:

* 8 ounces Silken tofu
* 4 ounces light cream cheese
* 2 Organic eggs
* 2 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
* 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
* 1/2 cup brown sugar or white sugar.
* 1 teaspoon instant coffee powder

Berry glaze
2 cup of fresh or frozen berries(Strawberries,raspberries,blackberry or blueberry),chop if using strawberries
2 tablespoon brown sugar


Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2.Prepare the glaze,by reducing the berries with cup of water until soft and mushy.Blend to a smooth consistency.set aside.

2. If preparing the crust ,mix together the crust 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.

3. Combine all the ingredients in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface.Pour the prepared glaze all over and spread using a table knife for swirl patter. 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.

5. 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.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a spring form pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Prep notes: While the actual making of this cheesecake is a minimal time commitment, it does need to bake for almost an hour, cool in the oven for an hour, and chill overnight before it is served.Sprinkle nuts over the slices and some fruit soup(made by reducing fruit juice),if desired.


Vegan Variation
Ingredients
4 ounce Tofutti Cream Cheese
1/2 cup brown or white sugar
1 package(8 ounce) silken Mori-Nu Tofu
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tablespoon corn starch
Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine all the ingredients in a food processor until smooth.Spread over the crust and bake for 1 hour. Chill in the refrigerator overnight before serving.

Check out other creative daring baker's creative variations here.