Charamel Cokolat Cheesecake Bites

I do need to make a disclaimer here, right off of the bat, or would that be the tip of the spoon?  

I attend a weekly gathering of ladies called NPA.    I just started joining them at the weekly gatherings last year, but once a year they do a fundraiser for a local organization.   This year the organization is Refuge House, a safe house for women and children.   And this was their 12th anniversary as well. 

As you may have gathered by now, I like to cook, and make stuff for other people to eat.  Well, this fundraiser  was a good excuse to make something new.   And the name of this new recipe, was suggested by one of the other ladies, she had ordered a Caramel Chocolate cheesecake for dessert and mispronounced the name.   

I took the name she'd said and ran with it.

 Not too far, just far enough.

 And if you get offended easily, you might not want to look at the pictures at the end of this post.  Just warning you.   It is just slightly risque'.  Sorta...

And here's my take on it, the name that is.

I knew I wanted a chocolate crust, so I took a package of chocolate wafers I just happened to have in the cupboard and crushed them up in my food processor.

I had decided to line a tart pan with the chocolate crumbs and then put a prepared cheesecake in the middle and cut it into slices and serve them that way.  Well, I also wanted to get some caramel in there as well, so I made  some homemade caramel  and drizzled it onto the chocolate crust and put them into the fridge to set up.  I had actually made two pans, luckily.   And I say that because I just had to taste test them and see how they would slice up.   Well, I took the small round one out of the fridge, put some cheesecake filling in there and sliced it.  Well, kinda sliced it.

The caramel I'd drizzled across the crust had set up so hard I couldn't hardly cut it.  And it kinda crumbled all over the place, but that was OK, cause I fixed it.   I took the caramel off of the other crust, and then added some vanilla wafers and butter to the crust and put them into foil cupcake liners.

 I did put a vanilla wafer in the bottom of the liner first and then put the chocolate around them.   Put then into the fridge and let them set up.

I then took some of the lovely, hardened caramel I'd just made and decided to make a caramel sauce out of it.    I did taste test it.  And it turned out very good, but there was enough left to drizzle on top of the cheesecakes, I didn't eat it all.   I'm just not a chocolate person, but caramel, well, gee, ummm, I have  really hard time saying no to that.

I poured about 1/4 cup of sweetened condensed milk into the top of a double boiler, added another 1/4 cup or so of heavy cream and then plunked in a heaping spoonful of the homemade caramel.   Just over a half cup, I think.   Heated it slowly until the caramel melted into the milks' and then poured it into a pitcher and let it cool.   I have to say OMG!!!!!!  it is so good.   I see a big caramel sundae in my immediate future, sorry, got side tracked there.   









                Alert. the next picture shows the fully decorated cheesecakes.  

I drizzled a little of the sauce onto the top of the cheesecakes and then decorated them with these.

And I made these by heating 2 tablespoons heavy cream in the microwave and then adding two squares of semi sweet chocolate and let the chocolate melt in the cream.   Let it sit for a little to set up a little, this is a ganache after all, and then put it into a piping bag and made these guys.   I let them sit in the freezer for a few hours while the rest of the cheesecake got put together. 






And there you have it.   We raised a nice bit of cash for people who need it and had fun doing it.