Diced! – Maggie – Donut White Chocolate Cheesecake with Fresh Blueberry Sauce

Today we have an entrant for the final course of the Diced! competition. Contestants were instructed to create or find a recipe for a dessert containing the following ingredients: mini white powdered doughnuts, white chocolate and Fresh blueberries. They were instructed to make their dish and create a blog post about it, including pictures. You can help determine who advances to the next round. On Friday, after the last post, I will post a poll where you can vote for up to two of the contestants to move on. Vote for the post you like the best. You can vote because of the inventiveness, the yummyness, the use of ingredients, the quality of the writing and pictures or for any other reason. The poll will be active for one week only. Check back and vote. In the event of a tie, the Ranting Chef will choose who advances. More information about Diced! can be found here.

We started with five contestants and have two remaining (in alphabetical order): Ajax and Maggie. Ellie had the fewest amount of votes after the first round, Jenna had the fewest after the second round and Mikaela had to drop out of the competition.

Today’s contestant, Maggie is no stranger to The Rantings of an Amateur Chef. As the author of the popular Maggie Monday series, she has brought us quite a few great dishes. Now it is time for Maggie to go toe-to-toe with our other contestants.

Well, two tries are better than one, right? When I first read over the ingredients for this DICED challenge, I immediately knew I wanted to make bread pudding. I thought it would be perfect- donuts and blueberries in the bread pudding, and a white chocolate Frangelico sauce. I went straight home and got baking. Everything came together as I hoped.

It smelled amazing as it was baking. I took it out of the oven.

It was the ugliest thing I’ve ever made.

But, we had to taste it. Actually, it was pretty darn good. But it was so stinking ugly that my family wouldn’t eat the leftovers. Including #1 son who eats mustard sandwiches. Hmmmm. I’ve included photos of the hideous yet curiously tasty dish. And the recipe in case anyone might wish to improve upon it. Good luck!

I was back to the drawing board.

My next thought was to try a white chocolate cheesecake. It would be easy enough to adapt my basic cheesecake recipe-which is a classic New York style- dense, not too sweet, with a sour cream topping.  I used the mini-donuts in the crust and garnish, added melted white chocolate to the cheesecake filling, then made a fresh blueberry sauce for topping. I thought about pouring a pint of fresh blueberries over the crust before putting the filling in for baking, but chose not to this time as I wasn’t sure that the density of the crust would hold up to the berries. I may do this next time as I think it would work.

Everything came together beautifully, and this cake smelled so good in the oven. When I took it out to cool before putting the sour cream layer on it was all we could do not to dig in.

I was so pleased with how pretty this cheesecake is. The crust was delicious, and you could really take the donuts in it. I had not thought about adding white chocolate to the cheesecake filling, and it was great- still not too sweet, but did add richness. As if cheesecake needs to be more rich! I had to give a nod to the donuts with my garnish, so I made a little Donut Tower. Isn’t it cute?

So, this cake came out of the oven the day Son #3, Daughter #2 and her boyfriend came home from college. #3 was so inspired that he wants to try to bake one himself. We’ll see how that goes!

The second attempt was well worth it, and I will be making this again. With the donuts!

Donut White Chocolate Cheesecake with Fresh Blueberry Sauce

What you need:

Crust:

10 mini-powdered donuts- stale- a day or two old is best

1 cup slivered almonds

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

¼ cup melted butter

Filling:

10 oz white chocolate, melted

1 oz white chocolate, grated

4-8oz packages cream cheese, softened

½ cup plus 2 Tbs sugar

4 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

2 Tbs flour

1Tbs pure vanilla extract

Sour Cream Topping:

1 cup sour cream

1/8 cup sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Fresh Blueberry Sauce:
3/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (3 oranges)
2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
4 half-pints fresh blueberries
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

What you do:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Prepare a 9”spring form pan by spraying the bottom with baking spray, lining bottom with parchment paper, and spraying again. Place mini donuts in a food processor and pulse until crumbly. Add almonds and graham cracker crumbs and pulse until blended. Pour crumb mixture into a mixing bowl, and add melted butter. Mix until well blended then press into bottom and about ½” up side of pan.

Melt chocolate in microwave until smooth. Using a mixer, beat the cream cheese until fluffy. Add sugar, and bet in whole eggs and egg yolks, adding one at a time. Add the flour and vanilla, mix well, then add in the melted chocolate, beating the entire time until well combined. This is easiest in a stand mixer, but can be accomplished using a hand mixer.

Pour filling over the crust and bake cheesecake for one hour or until top is firm to the touch. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool for at least 15 minutes. Increase oven temperature to 450 degrees.

While cake is cooling, whisk together sour cream, sugar and vanilla. Once cake has cooled for about 15 minutes, pour sour cream topping over the top of the cake, smoothing out with a rubber spatula if necessary. Place cake back in the oven at 450 degrees and bake for about 10 minutes. Remove from oven and place on a rack. Cool to room temperature.

Once cake is at room temperature, cover and refrigerate overnight to fully set.

Before serving prepare the blueberry sauce. Combine the orange juice, sugar, and cornstarch in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. When the mixture is translucent and thickened, stir in the blueberries and simmer for 4 to 5 minutes, just until a few berries have burst but most are still whole. Stir in the lemon zest and lemon juice and cool.

Garnish cake with blueberry sauce, mini-donuts, and grated white chocolate.

Remember – check back after the last post to vote on who advances in the Diced! competition.