Dark Chocolate Cheesecake

I remember regularly going to the Cheesecake Factory with my grandmother, who passed away some months ago, whenever I visited the city where she lived. She liked it there, in part because she felt she got good value for the money. This was because the portions were huge, and the same was true for the slices of their famous cheesecake. My grandma and I usually spent some time poring over the cheesecake menu, which must have had at least twenty different types, and then we spent even more time discussing which flavour to get. Grandma always claimed I was the one who would eat the cheesecake and thus I should pick the flavour, but I knew that what would happen would be that she would eat at least half of the slice, and usually more too. So I would insist she tell me which flavour she was in the mood for, and so we would argue in a friendly way back and forth, while the waiter kept returning to our table to find out if we had decided yet. As Grandma was merrily eating the cake, she would say how she never ate dessert and didn’t care for it and really she didn’t want any, and she would act as though I was forcing her to eat it. But she would smile and pile even more whipped cream onto her fork. It was all part of the routine. A routine I no longer can partake in, because my grandmother is gone.

A completely separate cheesecake memory is from a few years ago, when a friend from Taiwan was going to celebrate her first birthday in this country. She felt alone and far from home, so I helped plan a party for her, and I decided to make mini-cheesecakes for all the guests. I spent one long afternoon crushing biscuits and filling tiny cupcake moulds. My friend and the others, who were primarily from Taiwan and China, had never seen or even heard of cheesecake before, and the very idea seemed to repel them. But I encouraged them to try the cakes, and soon the whole room was moaning in pleasure.

A few days ago, M happened to mention liking cheesecake, and all these memories came flooding back. In my mind, I saw my friend, who cried from happiness at her party. And I saw my grandmother, and I remembered the way she used to gossip with me about our relatives, and I could picture her smiling at me and telling me that I was very important to her. So I made a cheesecake. I made it for M, of course, because I want to make her happy and food is one of my major ways of showing love, but I also made it for my friend, who got sick and had to give up her studies and return to Taiwan, and I made it for my grandma, too, who got a lot of pleasure out of food even while pretending not to. And I made it for me, just because.

Ingredients:
300 g digestive biscuits (you can also use a mixture of biscuit types, such as Oreos or gingerbread cookies; I used half digestive biscuits and half gingerbread)
130 g butter
5 tbsp cocoa
½ cup sugar
500 g cream cheese
seeds from 1 vanilla pod or 1 tsp vanilla extract
200 g dark chocolate
¾ cup double cream
3 eggs
1 tsp salt
raspberries or strawberries or nuts

Instructions:
1. Crush the biscuits. I do this by putting them in a sealable plastic bag and rolling a rolling pin over it.
2. Melt the butter and mix it with the crushed biscuits and 2 tbsp of the cocoa.
3. Put the biscuit mixture in the base and up the sides of a springform cake tin. Pre-bake the base for 8 minutes in the oven at 180 C.
4. Mix the sugar, cream cheese, and vanilla until fluffy. I use a hand mixer, but a large stand mixer works just as well.
5. Melt the chocolate with 2 tbsp of the cream over low heat, stirring frequently.
6. Mix the eggs into the cream cheese mixture, beating well.
7. Add the salt, the rest of the cocoa, and the melted chocolate, continuing to beat.
8. Pour the chocolate over the base.
9. Bake for 50 minutes at 140 C, checking after 40 minutes. The cake should be fairly firm.
10. When it has cooled a bit, top the cake with fruit and/or nuts. Serve.