Every year the usual dilemma arises: how to use the leftover Easter egg chocolate? 😀 I tried various recipes these days, but the first one I want to tell you about is this chocolate and candied orange cheesecake, another of the cream and kefir cheesecakes loved in my house, where I used chocolate both in the base, melted, as a binder for cookies and puffed millet, and in the cream, added chopped along with the homemade candied orange peels.

The idea of adding the candied peels seemed like a winning one, giving the dessert a note of freshness – which I owed to my son, who does not like things that are too chocolaty.

And then… even my peels needed a nice recycling, as they had been languishing in the fridge for a while!

The homemade candied peels are so good that they just can’t be forgotten at the back of the fridge (mea culpa!) and it was a great idea to use them here, because this cheesecake was a hit and everyone loved it, including my anti-dark chocolate son. 😀

Isn’t it nice to recycle and avoid wasting such good things?

👇 You can find more of my cheesecakes here (and don’t miss the collection!): 👇

Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Economical
Rest time: 1 Hour
Preparation time: 30 Minutes
Portions: 8
Cooking methods: No-bake
Cuisine: Italian
Seasonality: All seasons

Ingredients

5.3 oz Dark chocolate
2.8 oz Cookies (assorted shortbreads)
1.4 oz Butter
0.9 oz Puffed millet
1 cup Fresh liquid cream
2/3 cup Homemade kefir (or yogurt)
3.5 oz Cream cheese
3.5 oz Chopped dark chocolate
1.8 oz Powdered sugar
1.4 oz Candied orange peel

Tools

Mixer
Springform pan
Meat mallet

Preparation

First of all, prepare the base.
Crumble the cookies and chop them with a processor or manually with a rolling pin or other suitable tool, for example, the meat mallet. 😀 Yes, perhaps with the processor I would have sped up the process, but this time I wanted to try it this way!
After pulverizing the cookies and before working with the chocolate, you need to prepare the cake pan.
It’s better to prepare the cake pan now so it’s ready when the chocolate is melted. I recommend choosing a springform pan, preferably 9 inches (max 9.4) and line the base (only the base) with parchment paper.
At this point, break the chocolate into pieces, put it in a saucepan with the butter and melt it over low heat.
You can also melt it in the microwave, setting it at maximum power for one minute at a time and stirring with a spoon after each minute (3 minutes should be enough).
As soon as the chocolate is melted, add the cookie crumbs and puffed millet and mix quickly, then immediately pour the mixture into the cake pan. Spread the mixture with the back of a spoon to cover the entire base and create a border of a couple of inches.
The border isn’t essential; the base of cheesecakes is usually without a border, but since I started making them like this, I prefer them, I like them better visually, and the slices can be held more easily.
Place the base in the freezer for about ten minutes, or as long as it takes to prepare the cream of cream, kefir, and cheese.
To prepare the cream, proceed as follows: Pour the cream into a high-sided container, sweeten it with powdered sugar, and whip it using an electric whisk.
Once the cream is well whipped, add the cream cheese, blend briefly to mix it with the cream, then add the kefir (you can replace it with plain natural or Greek yogurt).
It’s best if the kefir is as thick as yogurt, so it’s advisable not to use freshly filtered kefir but after a few hours of resting in the fridge (second fermentation). If the kefir isn’t thick enough, you can proceed with a brief draining using a napkin to remove some of the whey. For more details on draining kefir (which may seem difficult as described, but I assure you it’s extremely simple), I’ve given instructions HERE.
Pour the cream in layers over the base (just removed from the freezer), sprinkle each layer with chopped chocolate and coarsely chopped candied oranges.
Decorate the last layer with chopped chocolate and candies.
Place the cheesecake in the freezer to cool for at least an hour.
You can also freeze it, then when serving, leave it at room temperature for 20 minutes before cutting.
This chocolate and orange cheesecake, like all my cheesecakes, is without gelatine or other thickeners, so a short rest in the freezer is always necessary to set the cream.
After experimenting with puffed rice in the strawberry cheesecake and trying puffed amaranth in the hazelnut cream cheesecake, I think I’ve found the puffed cereal for me: puffed millet is just the right size! It’s not as big as rice nor as small as amaranth, and it definitely has a nice visual appearance, don’t you think?
Enjoy! 😀