I am not making a White Chocolate cheesecake. I wanted to make a white chocolate cheesecake, I started making one, but then...

I melted my chocolate well ahead of time, I let it cool down a good 20 minutes. I thought it was OK, but then I started mixing in a little batter to temper it a little more - and in a split second I had this huge lump of stiff paste.

So now I need to figure out what to do with my plain cheesecake. It has a nice chocolate cookie-crumb crust, but the filling is plain. What can I put on top of it now? Something that takes minimum time and certainly minimum artistic capabilities. I can probably get some strawberries to putt on top of it, but I want to do something more along the "chocolate" line. Help! I need ideas!

Nutella

Your chocolate likely tightened because of the ratio of water to melted chocolate. A few drops of water can tighten a whole pound of chocolate.

Try adding a couple TBSP of butter to the white chocolate and slowly melting it over water in a double boiler. If you've already made the cheesecake, you can tint the white chocolate and use it as a decorative drizzle over the plain cheesecake. Tint isn't necessarily food dye, which would likely tighten it again. If you've incorporated enough butter, you can probably get away with 2 to 3 tsp of creme de mint, amaretto or other liquor slowly mixed in, or you can pur�e a cup of the berries, warm the pur�e slightly and incorporate some of the melted chocolate into that.

To do a drizzle: put your warm, not hot, chocolate into a thick quart ziplock (kippie bag put to a better use!), then cut a very small, 3 mm, corner off one of the bottom corners and use this as a pastry bag. Decorate in the pattern of your choice.

Too bad that happened to the chocolate, although I am not sure why it happened. Even if you mix water into chocolate it will not harden the chocolate. After all you can make a hot chocolate out of molten chocolate and water (milk is preferable but water works). You say you mixed a batter in it. Maybe the temperature difference was simply too big. I don't know what was wrong.

For a quick safe, some caramel, simply whipped up in a pan with milk, cream and sugar will work. Or put some mixed berries on top. If the berries don't look so hot anymore, puree them.

Some grated dark chocolate would also look really nice on a white cheesecake.

Besides that, I'm not spoiled. I will even eat plain cheesecake. Now you made me hungry!

Till

Yes, it's clear you don't know what went wrong. Here's a short explanation of what went wrong:

http://www.chocolate.com/recipes/the...chocolate.html

Interesting that this website says not to use butter - the chocolatier I studied with did use butter to rescue a tightened chocolate.

No need for the Roll Eyes.

First, the text you quoted states that this will happen only with one or two drops of water. Not with a larger quantity. That's what I said. It also states that it is odd it will do it with 1-2 drops but not with more. However, it fails to provide an explanation.

Second, Cloudship did not add water but batter. Batter is not water.

Third, it stands to reason that the batter was not added in quantities of 1-2 drops. So it shouldn't have hardened if the reason was water.

Sadly, we still don't know the real reason. I have never had chocolate harden whether I used a bain marie or not.

We can presume a temperature reaction, Cloudship said she let it cool 20 minutes, in that the temperature of the mix dropped to quickly when a colder substance was added. Or we can presume a chemical reaction, as would be the case with water but since water is not batter, see above.

The reason that the text doesn't recommend butter is that butter still contains water. Oil doesn't, as he says.

Cloudship, how did the cake turn out? And what was in the batter you tried to mix with the chocolate?

Till

I am assuming that there still must have been a temperature differential. White chocolate is finicky stuff, To be honest I never trust it myself. I was going to add it to a standard Cream Cheese/Egg/Sugar cheesecake batter. Usually I do a ganache type of thing where I melt it with cream and then add it - it usually works out for me that way. But everyone keeps telling me I don't have to do that, and I tried taking a short cut, lesson learned.

In any case I think it may have been some kind of divine spite. My crust didn't turn out right, I undercooked it a bit, my strawberries turned out bad, and I couldn't get it to come out of the pan smoothly this time, like it usually does. I had a little while to get some more white chocolate at the store, so I ended up doing a ganache that I poured over it. It didn't look good, but everyone absolutely loved it. In fact, the under cooking seemed to go over really good - everyone thought it was really creamy and I might try that bit again.

The chocolate seized because of either water getting into it or it picked up enough humidity in the air. I work with a lot of white chocolate, and avoid it when possible in the dog days of summer. It'w way more common with white chocolate then milk or dark, and the higher the quality the chocolate, the worse it is.

The water is absorbed by the dry particles in the chocolate and they clump together, and it keeps them from incorporating with the fat in the chocolate, and the fat and dry particles separate.

It can be salvaged with butter, vegetable oil, or solid shortening, and used like you were going to, but it's just as easy to make another batch for the cake and use the salvaged chocolate for something where the consistency sis not as vital. It will still be a bit gritty in the cheesecake (though I've often just crumbled up some oreos and mixed them in too, it hides the grittiness of the chocolate.

Thanks, Mike. That's interesting. So it happens rather with white chocolate. Hm, I never use that, so I wouldn't know but I trust you on that. So then what are the dry particles in the white chocolate that you speak of?

I really like the idea of simply using it and adding some cookies to hide the gritty consistency. It's not a bug, it's a feature!

Till

White chocolate is usually made of cocoa butter, milk solids, salt, and sugar. The milk solids separate from the butter. They have more of an affinity for water than fat, and when they get hold of some they bind together.

The first time it happens and you have this beautiful white melted chocolate that one more stir turns to a giant blob floating in the yellow cocoa butter fat you totally freak out.

The problem is most times you only have enough white chocolate for what you need, most people don't keep it on hand, and if you bought anything over the cheapest brand, you have a bit of money invested in it (probably more than the rest of the cheesecake), so it's worth trying to salvage.

Since we are on the subject (well it's a bit off topid), this is one of my favorite ways to enjoy a white chocolate cheesecake
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Tiramisu with White Chocolate

Note - A real tiramisu would use coffee, since I hate coffee I've replaced it with the liquor.

12 ounces white chocolate (something like Lindt or Ghirardelli are worth the extra money here)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream, as fresh as you can get
3 ounces softened cream cheese (or marscopone, which is even better)
40 lady fingers , split in half, but not separated from each other.
1/2 cup liquor, something like Baileys, or White Chocolate Liquor.
3 pints fresh strawberries

Preparation - Break the chocolate into uniformed pieces of an ounce or smaller.

Pick eight or nine of the best strawberries of a similar size for the decorations, pick the best looking one for the center of the cake. Slice the rest of them.

Line the side of a springform pan with a strip of wax paper.

Melt the chocolate with 1/4 cup of cream in a double boiler over hot, but not boiling, water. Stir frequently until all of the chocolate is melted and smooth, cool it to room temperature.

Beat the cream cheese until it is light and fluffy, then beat in the chocolate mix until it is combined with the cream cheese on low speed.

In a cold bowl, whip the remaining cream until stiff peaks form (it will whip faster if the bowl, beaters, and cream are very cold). Fold 1/4 of the whipped cream into the chocolate cream cheese mix to thin it out, then fold the remaining whipped cream in until smooth.

Line the bottom of the pan with ladyfingers, put a ring of them around the sides (cut side facing in). If possible use attached ones to line the side.

Put the liquor into a spray bottle or use a pastry brush, and spray the ladyfingers until soaked. Spoon in half of the filling, and tap down.

Layer half the strawberries on the cream, then another layer of lady fingers. Soak these too, then the rest of the sliced berries. Add the remaining cream mix, tap down and smooth, decorate with the berries, and refrigerate overnight.

Super cool. Thanks, Mike. Now I understand. Are you a chef, actually? I will try that recipe when I get some time. Thanks for that. I like ordinary Tiramisu but this sound very nice, too.

Till

Ralphie May - White Chocolate: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGzELVG7Iqo

a decent bit from a terrific comedian

This seems like the best thread to bump to ask this question.

Making mini white chocolate cheesecakes for our annual Christmas family dessert competition.

Trying to decide what the best white chocolate to buy is - I'd love to know if anyone has a go to white baking chocolate for WCC.

Describing the reconstituted chocolate as "gritty" is an understatement. The cookie pieces, however small, and chocolate would have very different mouth feels, and the chocolate would not be an asset to the finished dessert. It would be a combination of fat globules melting in the mouth, fat without much flavor, and the solids, which have a very odd and unpleasant texture not at all similar to the cookie crumbs.

Valrhona Ivory is pretty hard to beat, it tastes like you imagine perfect white chocolate to taste, milky and vanilla-ey (although if you were in the UK I would opt for Milkybars, just because they taste like childhood!)