Additional Ingredients

For the filling:

200 grams	Full Fat Cream Cheese
400 grams	Mascarpone cheese
75 grams	Golden Caster Sugar (Billington's)
3	Free Range Eggs (Happy Eggs)
40 grams	pure cocoa powder, sifted, plus extra for dusting
100 grams	good-quality dark chocolate, melted

How to make Chocolate Cheesecake

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1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC(fan 160ºC)/350ºF/gas mark 4. Grease a 20cm (8in) springform cake tin with extra butter, and base-line with baking paper.
2. For the base, crush the bourbon biscuits into crumbs and place into a bowl. Pour over the measured melted butter. Mix together well, then press evenly into the prepared cake tin.
3. For the filling, place the cream cheese, mascarpone and sugar in a food processor and blend until smooth. Next add the eggs, then the measured cocoa powder and lastly the melted chocolate, still beating. Continue beating until thoroughly combined.
4. Spoon the mixture on to the biscuit base in the tin. Level the surface then bake in the preheated oven for about 50-60 minutes, or until the cheesecake still has a slight wobble in the centre. Turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake inside to cool and set for about 1 hour with the door closed. Take out of the oven, cool, then chill for at least 3 hours in the fridge.
5. Turn out of the tin, peel off the lining paper and transfer to a serving plate. Dust with cocoa and serve with crème fraîche.
6. Alternatives You can add some chopped roasted pecan nuts, or even some finely grated orange zest to the mixture to give it a nice flavour. Another of my favourite alternatives is to break up a handful of After Eight mint wafers into the mixture for a nice rich mintchocolate flavour.

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