Chocolate and Lime Cheesecake

Not sure what made me settle on making a cheesecake this weekend, nor the chocolate and lime, as it seems a slightly odd combination. The recipe calls for a chocolate base with a lime filling and decorated with chocolate shavings/curls.

I set about making the base just after I had finished the Fruit Tea cupcakes, since it needed to cool in the fridge slightly. It is basically just double chocolate cookies, for which I used Maryland cookies, and melted butter mixed together to make a paste type consistency. This is pressed into the spring side tin which I lined only on the bottom with greaseproof paper. Into the fridge for 30 minutes and I started on the cheesecake filling.

This is mainly Philadelphia, whisked with icing sugar and then adding the eggs one by one, scraping the sides down after each addition. Then the zest and juice of no less than 6 limes needs to be added into this mixture. It took me a long time to grate and then squeeze the limes as I currently don't own a juicer and had to go it by hand. I also had a little mishap and (stop reading now if you are squirmish) grated a bit of my thumb off..luckily none of it ended up in the zest but it did require a few plasters before baking could continue. Still a bit sore now actually. The smell of the mixture once the limes had been added was amazing.

Base out of the fridge and the cheesecake mixture was poured over it to go into the oven to bake. The mixture looked runnier than usual and it made me a little worried at first. I again didn't sink the tin into the water bath but instead put the tin on the shelf above it. Still seems to work just as well and is less complicated and messy.

The cheesecake must have been a bit more sloppy than previous mixes as it took about an hour to took in total, rather than the 40 minutes I had originally set the time too. It came out well even though was cooking for longer.

Let the tin cool enough to handle and then popped it into the fridge to cool. Didn't try any until Sunday evening when Hubby returned from his fishing trip. The Cheesecake was decorated just before serving and I grated some chocolate over the top and did sprinkle from lime zest on as well but after a small lick (just to check everything was okay obviously) I decided it was too strong a taste and wiped it off. The lime in the filling taste was dulled down by the cream cheese and took the edge off it. It paired well with the chocolate base and all in all it a nice treat. Not one of my favourites though, I actually preferred the previous cheesecake I made, the Butterscotch Pecan one.

Also attaching a photo of my Mini chocolate loaves made on Sunday from the adapted Coffee and Chocolate Loaf Hummingbird recipe. Made up the same quantity of batter for a normal sized loaf.