White Chocolate Cheesecake with Raspberry Coulis

As evidenced by the long list of recipes featuring it on this site, I have a bit of a thing for chocolate. It is probably the only food that I’ve consistently loved all of my life, and to prove my allegiance to eat, I eat some every day. While milk is fine, my real love is dark chocolate — the darker and more bitter, the better.

But white chocolate is simply unacceptable. The confection assaults my sensibilities, starting with the fact that it shouldn’t even be called chocolate. White chocolate is made with cocoa butter, sugar, milk solids and salt, without the cocoa solids that make chocolate chocolate. On top of that, true white “chocolate” is not even white — it’s usually a pale ivory color.

The worst quality of “ivory not-chocolate,” as I like to call it, is that it’s tooth-achingly sweet, with none of the complexities or richness of a good dark chocolate bar. There are no hints of cinnamon or espresso, no fruity notes, none of the flavor that makes chocolate so mind-blowingly good. It is an impostor, a fake.

Unfortunately, I come from a family of white chocolate lovers. My dad, my uncle, my aunt, my cousin, my sister — all go gaga for it, for reasons unbeknownst to me. For my uncle’s birthday, I decided to combine both his love for white chocolate with his love for cheesecake and create a white chocolate cheesecake that I, admittedly, did not look forward to eating but knew everyone else would love.

Appearance counts when making birthday cakes, and memories of the jagged scar deforming my last cheesecake haunted me as I looked for a recipe. So naturally, instead of viewing this as an opportunity to learn and blah blah blah, I took the easy way out and chose a no-bake cheesecake, one that required minimal effort and required only a spatula for a smooth, perfectly formed top.

Since I hear that that whole white chocolate-raspberry combination is pretty delightful, I decided to make a coulis to drizzle over the cheesecake. While my dad, uncle and cousin didn’t love the raspberry sauce, I thought its tartness balanced the sweet cheesecake nicely.

This white chocolate cheesecake is lighter than most, aided by the airy folds of whipped cream and the less than two bricks of cream cheese. Topped with its blood red partner, it was surprisingly good — enough for me to grab a second slice, and then gasp, a third.

White Chocolate Cheesecake with Raspberry Coulis

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Ingredients

For the cheesecake

• 1 5-ounce box of gingersnaps, crushed
• 5 tablespoons butter, melted + 3 tablespoons of butter, softened
• 2/3 pound white chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 2/3 pound cream cheese, softened
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chilled heavy cream

For the raspberry coulis

• 1 half-pint raspberries
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

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Instructions

1. Mix the gingersnap crumbs and 5 tablespoons of butter until the mixture resembles wet sand. Press into the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan, using the heel of your hand to level the crust.
2. Set a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water. Melt the white chocolate and 3 tablespoons butter in the bowl, stirring occasionally until the mixture is velvety.
3. Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla extract until smooth. Add the white chocolate and mix until combined.
4. In a separate bowl (one that has been chilled, preferably), whip the cream until it forms stiff peaks. Using a rubber spatula, stir a quarter of the whipped cream into the white chocolate mixture until thoroughly combined, then gently fold in the rest of the whipped cream.
5. Transfer the batter into the springform pan and use the spatula to smooth the top. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. Release the sides of the springform pan before serving with the raspberry coulis.
6. Make the raspberry coulis: Heat the raspberries, sugar and lemon juice until the raspberries have softened, about 8-10 minutes, stirring frequently. Break the raspberries up using the back of a wooden spoon. Using a fine-mesh sieve, strain the sauce. Let cool before drizzling over the cheesecake.

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Nutrition

• Serving Size: 8