Double Chocolate Cheesecake

Last weekend we had a BBQ with our neighbours and I set myself the weekly cake task for the event. Last week I thought about things that I've really not cooked very often and sought inspiration from cookbooks and the internet and decided upon cheesecake. Cheesecake is one of those puddings that either makes me think of the 1970s lemon cheese cake on crushed digestive biscuits with mandarin segments (from a tin) on top or something found lurking in the frozen isle of the supermarket. Either way, not that tempting. However I remembered my mum's cousin Anne introducing me, as a teenager, to the delights of baked cheesecake. I must get her recipe again as it was delicious.

Baked cheesecake has much more of a sophisticated flavour about it and less of the 70s kitsch. So I scoured a few recipe books and a few websites and found a double chocolate cheesecake recipe which could be adapted for the wheat free requirements across the road.

So I found this recipe on BBC Good Food (as usual!) I think mine was a bit more goey than perhaps I expected, but it was very much appreciated by the friends across the road.

And despite being incredibly rich (I added raspberries in an attempt at being healthy and to cut through the richness of the chocolate) this very large cheesecake didn't last too long!

Next week I am going on a cupcake course with Fair Cake to learn the delicate art of perfect swirls and sugar craft toppings. Hopefully I'll be able to post some much better cup cakes on Sunday. I'm hoping for something close to the image below...wish me luck!