Brownie Mascarpone Cheesecake with Daim
This recipe for brownie mascarpone cheesecake was originally published on my former blog, The Culinary Jumble, in August 2017. The images have been retouched and the recipe has been amended slightly.
Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that my recipes of late have included a big old slice of healthy. While I am always looking for ways to lighten up the food I make, we all need a treat now and then. In this case, a really huge treat. But you know what, if you are going to do something, you might as well go all out, don’t you think? Like this over the top, calorific, extravaganza of baked mascarpone chocolate cheesecake. Nice.
The base is a gluten free brownie that is baked first before adding the cheesecake filling. However, you don’t need to make your brownie gluten free – use regular or spelt flour, instead. The double baking leaves the brownie fudgy, almost gooey-like, and it is a fantastic contrast to a more traditional crunchy biscuit base.
The filling is creamy and smooth made with mascarpone, cream cheese and chocolate. The topping is a rich dark chocolate ganache covered with Daim, Sweden’s finest confectionary!
I am no stranger to using Daim in my desserts. It had a starring role in my three layer butterscotch cake, made a delicious 5 minute Daim and almond bark, and was added to my quick milk chocolate fudge.
As with my blueberry cheesecake, I didn’t bake this in a water bath. The end result is probably less smooth and refined in appearance because of this. But, you know what, I don’t think I care. And anyway, the taste of this beauty will make you forget any imperfections, for sure.
I will be honest and say that this mascarpone chocolate cheesecake is a fiddly recipe. It it is little long-winded with various different steps including overnight refrigeration. But the effort is worth it. Big time.
The cheesecake is large and will easily feed 12-15 people. Plus, you only need a teeny bit, which makes it go further.
Brownie Mascarpone Cheesecake with Daim
Ingredients
Brownie:
- 100g (3½ oz) dark chocolate
- 150g (⅔ cup) butter
- 30ml (2 tbs) brewed coffee (see note 1)
- 30ml (2 tbs) milk
- 60g (⅓ cup) brown sugar
- 65g (⅓ cup) white sugar
- 1 egg
- 15g (⅛ cup) cocoa
- 30g (¼ cup) sorghum flour (see note 2)
- 10g (1 tbs) rice flour (see note 2)
Cheesecake:
- 200g (7 oz) milk chocolate
- 500g ( 2 cups) mascarpone
- 300g (1 + ⅓ cup) cream cheese
- 160g (¾ cup) white sugar
- 30g ( ¼ cup) cocoa
- 3 eggs
- around 100g Daim bars (crushed/chopped)
Ganache:
- 100g (3½ oz) dark chocolate
- 75ml (5 tbs) cream
- 1 tablespoon sugar
Instructions
Brownie:
- Pre-heat the oven to 170°C (325°F) and grease (or line) a large rectangle or square springform pan (mine was 27cm x 17cm / 10in x 7in).
- Slowly heat the chocolate and butter in a pan until just melted, then add the coffee/water and milk. Leave the mixture to cool for about 10 minutes.
- In a large bowl, whisk the sugar with the egg, then quickly beat in the cooled chocolate mixture.
- Sift the vanilla sugar, flours and cocoa together and stir into the wet ingredients until well combined.
- Pour into the prepared tin and bake for around 20 minutes (until an inserted skewer comes out clean). Remove from the oven and allow to cool (leave the oven on).
Cheesecake:
- Melt the chocolate in a Bain Marie then allow to cool for a while.
- Whisk the cream cheese, mascarpone, sugar and cocoa together then then beat in the eggs.
- Gently stir in the melted chocolate just until everything is evenly combined.
- Lastly, fold in the half of the crushed/chopped Daim bars (retaining the remainder to sprinkle on top of the ganache). Pour over the cooled brownie.
- Bake for one hour, or just until it has an overall appearance of being set but the middle is still slightly jiggly. Turn the oven off but keep the cheesecake inside until it is cool to the touch. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.
Ganache:
- Heat the cream and sugar together until a rolling boil is achieved. Break the chocolate into small pieces and place in a bowl.
- Pour over the hot cream mixture and leave without touching for five minutes, then stir quickly until a thick ganache forms.
- Pour over the cooled cheesecake, sprinkle with the remaining Daim pieces and then refrigerate overnight. Slice and serve. Enjoy!
Notes
- I always add coffee to my chocolate cakes as it enhances the flavour. If you'd prefer not to use it, just substitute it with the same amount of milk (so you would use 60ml / 4 tablespoons of milk in total). Alternatively, if you do not have brewed coffee, just use the same amount of water with 1 tablespoon of instant coffee.
- This recipe was first appeared on my original blog, The Culinary Jumble, and was made using gluten free flour. You can follow my instructions, or substitute the GF flours I used for any you like. Alternatively, you could replace the GF flours with regular or spelt. Although I have not made this recipe with spelt flour, I now use spelt for all of my brownie recipes, so I do not see any problem with you replacing the GF flour with spelt.