Once I got over the fact that these little squares cannot be sliced to my neat freak standards I turned my attention to taste. Delicious! I used the least amounts from the rich ingredients and cut 16 small squares, hoping for portion control, except its hard not to have a second or a third. These would look great on a squares platter among nanaimo bars, lemon squares or brownies. It is a good thing our woodworker bachelor friend dropped by and helped destroy all that remained from yesterday.
This is easy to turn into a cheesecake, just use a small spring form cake pan. No need for a topping, the white chocolate perfectly rounds out the flavours. Use vanilla wafer crumbs for the base, the honey grahams would be too overpowering. For the same reason, don’t add lemon juice or vanilla extract.
WHITE CHOCOLATE CHEESE CAKE SQUARES
1 cup vanilla flavoured cookie crumbs2 Tbsp melted butter
3/4 cup cream cheese
1 Tbsp sugar
3 white chocolate squares, barely melted
1 Tbsp finely grated lemon zest
2 egg yolks
2 egg whites
• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• Combine the cookie crumbs with melted butter and press into an 8×8x2 inch baking pan.
• Bake the base in the preheated oven for 12 minutes or until edges begin to brown lightly.
• Remove from heat and let it cool slightly.
• Turn the oven down to 325F.
• Place the cream cheese, sugar, lemon zest and the egg yolks.
• Partially melt the white chocolate squares in a small pot on medium low heat.
• Remove from heat and stir until the remaining chunks melt from the residual heat.
• An alternative is to melt the chocolate, continually stirring, in the top half of a double boiler. it up until doubled in size.
• Gradually pour in the melted chocolate into the cream cheese, beating all the while.
• Beat for 4 minutes or until mixture doubles. Set aside.
• In a clean bowl and with clean beater, whip up the egg whites until stiff peaks fold.
• Gradually fold the beaten egg whites into the cream cheese mixture.
• Pour this over the baked crust.
• Select a rimmed baking pan the 8X8 pan will easily fit into.
• Fill the larger pan with about and inch of water and place it in the 325F oven.
• Place the pan with the cheesecake in the middle of the larger pan.
• Shot the oven door and bake for 25 minutes or until the sides are starting to get a little color.
• Remove from heat and let the bar cool. Place in the fridge for a couple of hours and then slice into 16 squares.
