I decided to serve a raspberry swirl cheesecake as the dessert for a recent pop-up dinner. I didn’t have an exact recipe at hand, but I have a basic cheesecake formula that I like to tweak for most cheesecake type preparations. I figured that I could look around at what others were doing by way of incorporating the raspberry swirl (or marble) to get some ideas…and then adjust my recipe accordingly.
As is almost always the case when I search for “what others are doing,” I find one main thing that most people are doing…and then a few outliers that are quite different. I should say up front that my experience is that there is no guarantee that the thing most people are doing is correct…or will even work at all. It is a sad fact that in our food blogging world, anyone can post a recipe…and if something is beautiful in a picture or done by a widely read blogger…that many people just post it again—whether it works or not.
My main question as I looked at recipes was about whether or not to cook the sweetened raspberry purée. Most people cook the purée (one or two even used jam). But I didn’t find anyone who explained why they did it one way or the other. From my perspective, the main argument in favor of not cooking the raspberry purée is that it will remain thinner and won’t tend to want to sink in the batter. Creating a marbled batter is not always a straightforward thing. If one of the components is a lot thicker/heavier than the other, it will sink…and you will end up with two layers of batter rather than two batters that are marbled. Most cheesecake batters are sort of thin and pourable, so a thinner purée makes more sense.
The argument against using fresh, uncooked purée is that the flavor isn’t very concentrated. And since there is nothing in the purée to make it “set” during the cooking process, you can’t add a lot of it. It literally needs to be a thin ribbon—a suggestion of more. In many marbled cakes/cheesecakes/etc. the portion being marbled in is a quarter to a third of the total batter. This would never work with a fruit purée (the resulting cheesecake would fall apart when cut).
You could of course mix some of the cheesecake batter into the raspberry purée/sauce/jam—and then marble this fruit batter back into the main batter. (This is how chocolate marbled cheesecakes are made.) But since I wanted my raspberry swirl to have a deep, jewel-tone character, this didn’t appeal to me.
At the other end of the spectrum from fresh purée is jam. Jam’s flavor is concentrated and would therefore give you a lot of flavor punch for the quantity…but jam is cooked until quite thick and heavy. I was certain it would sink. I didn’t even consider using jam for this reason.
So…in the end…what “most people” were doing was what I went with: a lightly cooked sweetened purée of raspberries. It gave me a more concentrated flavor than fresh…but was still thin enough that it didn’t sink. If you cook it too long (making it too thick and heavy), you can always add water back in.
As far as the actual
process of adding the swirl, I added it in two layers. The reason for this is that you can add more
purée if you tuck some of it in the middle.
Part of what makes marbled things beautiful is the contrast on the
surface (one of the reasons I baked my cake in a wide shallow pan is to give
more surface area). If you add all of
the purée to the top (where it will stay since you’ve gone to lengths to keep
it from sinking) you won’t have as much “swirl”—you’ll have “blobs” of
raspberry instead.
To add the raspberry purée
in layers: First, add a scant half of
the cheesecake batter to the prepared pan over the crust and spread it out into
an even layer. Drizzle about a third of the purée evenly over this first layer
of batter (I use a squirt bottle—but a drizzling from a spoon will work just
fine). There is no need to swirl this
part in…adding the rest of the batter and swirling the second addition of
raspberry will be sufficient.
The tricky part is adding the remaining batter. You can’t just pour it on and spread it out. You have to add it a spoonful at a time, holding your spatula/spoon/(whatever you are using to transfer the batter) just above the batter and moving it as you do (sort of like laying paint on a surface), so that each addition covers a wide section of the drizzle. When you are done adding the batter, you shouldn’t need to spread it—other than a nudge here and there—since you were effectively spreading it as you laid it in the pan. All the drizzle should be covered.
Then, use the squirt bottle or a small spoon to dollop the remaining raspberry puree evenly over the surface. Use the tip of a table knife or small palette knife to marble in the puree. The marble/swirl is best made with wide sweeping motions…zigzags and loops that sweep from one side of the pan to the other. You only need to do three or four passes one way…and then three or four the other…with a possible final swirl to “correct” any solid blobs of raspberry or spots of cheesecake that need a bit of raspberry swirled into them.
Finally, you will notice that there is white chocolate in the cheesecake batter…but not in the name. I suppose you could call it “White Chocolate Cheesecake with a Raspberry Swirl” if you wanted to. But to be honest, it doesn’t really taste like white chocolate. I mostly add white chocolate because it adds an unidentifiable ”something-something”—in both the texture and the flavor. You will notice when you add it, that it gives the batter more body and a slightly pearly sheen. It also adds a bit of sweetness that compliments the raspberry particularly well. I think you could probably leave it out…but I wouldn’t.
Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake
5 oz. graham crackers, finely ground (to make a scant 1 1/2 cups crumbs)
3 T. granulated sugar
2 oz. (4 T.) unsalted butter, melted
Line a 9-inch square baking pan with 2 crisscrossed sheets of foil, leaving an overhang. Butter or spray the pan. Combine the crust ingredients until homogenous and press into the pan in a compact even layer. Bake in a pre-heated 350° oven until just beginning to brown—10 minutes. Cool.
Filling:
125 g. white chocolate, chopped
3 8-oz. packages cream cheese, room temperature
165 g. sugar (3/4 c. plus 1 T.)
2 T. all-purpose flour, sifted (15 g.)
1/8 t. salt
1/2 c. sour cream (121g.)
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 t. vanilla
95 g. raspberry sauce (about 1/3 c.)
Set a large pot of water over high heat. When it is steaming, reduce the heat to very low and place the white chocolate in a bowl that is wider than the pot and place the bowl over the steaming water. Let the chocolate melt. Remove the bowl from the pot and set aside in a warm spot while you make the batter. Bring the pot of water to a boil and keep hot.
Briefly beat cream cheese to break up. Beat in the sugar until smooth; scrape the sides. Beat in the flour & salt; scrape the sides. Add the sour cream and beat in. Scrape the sides. Beat in the eggs and vanilla in two or three additions, just until smooth and fully incorporated. Add a quarter to a third of the batter to the melted chocolate and quickly stir in until smooth. Add this tempered white chocolate batter to the main batter and mix until thoroughly combined.
Scrape a scant half of the batter (a little over 500 grams) into the prepared pan. Using a squirt bottle with a medium tip, drizzle a couple of tablespoons (30 g) of the raspberry sauce over the batter. Carefully spoon the remaining batter into the pan…covering the drizzle completely. Using the squirt bottle, squeeze small dollops of the remaining 65 g of sauce evenly over the surface (6 by 6 works well). Use a table or small palette knife to swirl through.
Place the pan on a half-sheet pan and place on the oven rack in a pre-heated 325° oven. Pour in the reserved hot water to come up at least half as high as the batter in the pan. Bake until just set—about 50 to 55 minutes. Lift the foil that is wrapped over the edges of the pan so that it is free to move as the cake shrinks while cooling.
Cool the cake to room temperature (about 2 hours). Chill, uncovered, until cold (at least 2 hours, but cheesecake may be baked a day or two ahead…or even frozen).
To portion, lift the cold cake out of the pan using the overhang of foil. Cut the cake using a sharp, thin knife dipped in hot water (and wiped dry) in between cuts. First, trim the edges. Then cut into three strips. Cut each strip evenly into 3, 4 or 5 pieces depending on whether you want 9, 12 or 15 portions. You may also cut 18 buffet-sized portions by cutting 9 squares and then cutting each square in half on the diagonal.
If you like, drizzle some of the sauce on each plate and top each portion with a rosette of whipped cream and some fresh raspberries.
Raspberry Sauce
6 oz. raspberries, fresh or frozen
3 T. sugar
1/2 t. lemon juice
Purée and strain the raspberries. You should have a half to two-thirds cup of purée. Add the sugar and lemon juice and bring to a simmer in a small saucepan. Simmer for a few minutes until slightly thickened and darkened in color. Cool. Makes a scant half cup or 125g. sauce. If you have much less than this, simply add a little water to thin the purée back out.
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