Chocolate Balsamic Cake and Cranberry Swirl Cheesecake with White Chocolate Ganache

Today I decided to take Sunday and get busy. First, I made a Cranberry Swirl Cheesecake with White Chocolate Ganache. I used an epicurious.com recipe as a guide. And I finally got around to making a chocolate cake and frosting it with my balsamic buttercream. And Cassie, you were right, the Hershey's chocolate cake is very moist.

The ingredients for the crust: 1 stick melted butter, 2 T sugar and 2 3/4 cups finely crushed gingersnap cookies
The finished gingersnap cookie crust.The ingredients for the cheesecake (not including the cranberry sauce or the ganache): 1 cup sugar, 4 - 8 ounce packs of cream cheese, 1/2 cup whipping cream, 7 ounces greek yogurt, 1 T vanilla and 4 eggs.

As I was mixing the batter for the cheesecake I was heating the cranberry sauce (preferably with whole cranberries) over medium low heat and made the ganache. The ganache was 1/2 cup whipping cream and 9 ounces white chocolate. Although, I must say the ganache was a little too runny even after setting up in the fridge for a couple hours. Next time I'll make it with some more chocolate. When the batter was made I poured it all in the springform pan and then took an ice cream scoop and dolloped four spots of cranberry sauce into the batter then swirled it with a knife. Next, I wrapped the bottom with foil stuck it in a much bigger cake pan and filled it with some hot water and threw it in the oven.Now some people bake the crust before they pour the cheesecake batter in, but my grandma made the best cheesecakes ever and never ever ever baked the crust seperately. Therefore, I shall never do that either. (Stepping off soap box now)The finished product. It looks ooey gooey. In fact it's stands up quite well and the ooey gooeyness is the white chocolate. But it is sooooooooo good. It is the creamiest cheesecake I've ever had.

The very next thing I did was start on my chocolate cake. I had baked the cake a couple days ago and like I mentioned I used the recipe on the side of the Hershey's cocoa powder box, or it's on their website. I had to whip the buttercream back up until it smoothed out again, which took awhile, but I had to clean up while that was going anyways. And here's my helper:

If she likes it, it must be good.

I eventually got to frosting and here it is:

And it is very good. There is a hint of bitterness in the frosting but it all goes away with the chocolate cake. And next time I'm topping it with blueberries, raspberries and strawberries and it will be so yummy.

You knew this was coming:

"Qu'ils mangent de la brioche." / "Let them eat brioche" attributed to Marie Antoinette but never said it and got stuck with it anyways.

This is my cupcake.

And this is me trying to make dinner with my cupcake.

Now back to business. I made a chocolate cake for that consultation on Tuesday and later that day my mom tried some of what I had left over and commented on how dry it was. I always have this issue with basic chocolate cake recipes. You know, the ones on the sides of flour boxes or in the most basic of recipe books. Well, I took the same recipe and finally tried greek yogurt in place of the milk and I also cut the flour by a quarter cup and it was perfect. I've always heard about greek yogurt to help a dry cake but never had it around. But lately I've been snacking on it so it's in the house. I've tried sour cream in place of milk (and it works) but I like the flavor and texture of greek yogurt better.

So anyways, I didn't do anything on the edge or crazy but I got to play around and have fun. But now I have to get a hold of the couple to see if they want to give it another try.

“Your good friend has just taken a piece of cake out of the garbage and eaten it. You will probably need this information when you check me into the Betty Crocker Clinic.” -Cynthia Nixon (as Miranda)