Chocolate Orange Hung Curd Cheesecake

The union of orange and chocolate is one made in heaven. The two are just meant to be together. Do you think so? Well, I’m a big fan of the combo! So, it is but natural that, the moment I saw this recipe for an eggless chocolate-orange cheesecake on CH’s blog, I wanted to try it out. A short window of time opened up to me over the weekend, and I grabbed it with both hands to make this cheesecake. It turned out absolutely heavenly, and has already been devoured! 🙂

The just-unmoulded cheesecake – a tad broken, maybe, but heavenly in taste!

There is no gelatin or cream used in this cheesecake, and no eggs either. Instead, fresh hung curd is used here to make the sinfully rich, delectable and creamy top layer, suffused with the gorgeous scent of oranges. The bottom layer is made up of orange-scented dark chocolate, while the base is made up of orange digestive cookies (my variation!). Together, the three – the crust, the bottom layer and the top layer – make for a delight, a flavour bomb that will surely leave you hankering for more. The cheesecake requires minimal baking, and is super easy to put together, too. You must try it out to understand just what I mean!

We aren’t big fans of the silky smooth, gelatinous texture of store-bought cheesecakes, but we do have a thing for rustic, home-made cheesecakes like this one!

Left: The cheesecake, just out of the oven; Right: A small slice of the chocolate orange hung curd cheesecake

I mostly followed CH’s recipe, but made a few changes of my own. Here’s how I made the orange chocolate hung curd cheesecake.

Ingredients (makes 1 medium-sized cheesecake – about 10 medium pieces):

For the crust:

1. 2 tablespoons unsalted butter (I used Nilgiri’s)
2. 2-3 tablespoons fresh orange juice
3. 10-12 orange digestive biscuits (I used Nutrichoice)

For the bottom layer:

1. 1/4 cup dark chocolate, grated (I used Amul’s Tanzania chocolate)
2. 1 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
3. 1 tablespoon milk (boiled and cooled)

For the top layer:

1. 3/4 cup thick hung curd
2. 200 ml sweetened condensed milk (I used Amul Mithai Mate)
3. About 4 tablespoons fresh orange juice
4. 2-3 teaspoons freshly grated orange zest

Method:

1. First, preheat the oven at 200 degrees for 10 minutes and then get the crust ready. For this, powder the orange digestive biscuits in a mixer. Remove the powder into a mixing bowl, and add in the 2 tablespoons of butter and 2-3 tablespoons of fresh orange juice. Mix well, ensuring all the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated together.
2. Spread the prepared biscuit mixture on the bottom and sides of a medium-sized cake tin or springform pan. Make sure the mixture is evenly spread out everywhere, neither too thin nor too thick. Prick the crust randomly, using a fork.
3. Place the tin/pan in the preheated oven, and bake at 180 degrees for 5-6 minutes. Remove from the oven, and let the crust cool down completely.
4. Meanwhile, get the bottom layer (chocolate) of the cheesecake ready. Bring a pan filled with water to a boil on high flame, and then turn the flame down to medium. Place the grated dark chocolate in a saucepan, and place it inside the boiling water in the pan. Cook on medium flame till the chocolate melts entirely, stirring intermittently. Immediately mix in 1 teaspoon of orange zest and 1 tablespoon of milk. You should get a creamy, spreadable mixture. Spread this chocolate mixture evenly over the prepared cheesecake crust.
5. Now, get the top layer of the cheesecake ready. For this, in a mixing bowl, mix together the hung curd, condensed milk, orange juice and orange zest. Spread this mixture over the chocolate, atop the cheesecake crust.
6. Place the cheesecake in a preheated oven, and bake for 5-7 minutes or just until the hung curd layer has become a bit firm.
7. Let the cheesecake cool down slightly, and then place it, covered, in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. Serve chilled.

Notes:

1. Bring the butter to room temperature before you use it to make the crust.
2. Increase/decrease the quantities of hung curd, condensed milk, orange juice and orange zest used, as per individual taste preferences. These quantities were just perfect for us.
3. I hung 500 ml of Nandini curd in a cotton cloth over my kitchen sink for close to 2.5 hours, which yielded about 3/4 cup of thick hung curd.
4. For best results, use fresh curd that isn’t too sour.
5. Once the cheesecake was done and out of the oven, I decorated it with a little more fresh orange zest and dark chocolate shavings, before placing it in the refrigerator.
6. Orange zest is nothing but grated orange peel. To get orange zest, grate the skin of a whole orange finely, ensuring that you get only the peel and none of the white pith. The latter can turn the cheesecake bitter.

This chocolate orange hung curd cheesecake recipe is such a keeper, I tell you! I hope you’ll try it out too, and that you will love it as much as we did!

**********************

Would you like to take a look at the other similar recipes on my blog? Here you go!

• Easy hung curd cheesecake
• Eggless chocolate ganache and strawberries tart
• Easy no-egg lemon ice cream pie
• No-bake vanilla ice cream pie
• Bhapa doi, the OPOS way