Exceptionally Easy Chocolate Cheesecake (no baking required)

A very rare thing happened the other day, my lovely wife ventured into the kitchen and offered to help me with my baking backlog - not to make me a brew and not to load or unload the dishwasher - to actually help bake! Knowing how much she hates doing anything with food other than eating it, I was totally gob-smacked and supremely grateful. So, mindful of her ability and knowledge I asked her to prepare the biscuits for the tiffin and I gave her a rolling pin, three packets of rich tea and a huge bowl but unfortunately no instructions. Stupid, stupid me. Before I knew it the biscuits were mere crumbs and my wife had a huge grin 'I really enjoyed that' she said - I went nuts - I couldn't stay calm - I had so much left to bake, no biscuits left and tiffin is my bestseller. I, not very calmly, explained that the reason I was so cross was that tiffin needs biscuits to be broken into small pieces, like almond size, not crumbs and my poor, much better half's face just crumpled. The more upset she got the more of an arse I felt. Especially when she explained that she'd seen our son do the very same thing a few days ago so she was just copying - bless - he was helping me make cheesecake! Trying to rescue the situation (and the biscuits) I promised that I would make something lovely with the crumbs and that her hard work wasn't in vain and I wasn't really cross! Much! 

Really, the best option when you have spare biscuit crumbs and a sad wife is cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake. so that's what I made and wow was it yummy!

The Recipe

The Base

200g Biscuit crumbs - I had rich tea but I usually use digestives and you can use shortbread
2 tbsp cocoa
1 tbsp icing sugar
150g melted butter
Mix all together in this order and press into a cling film lined  8" loose bottom cake or flan tin and freeze while you make filling.

The Filling

400g softened full fat cream cheese

1 tbsp icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla 

200g melted chocolate - I used half milk and half plain

Mix all together in this order and spread over the base. freeze for 30 mins (you should be able to remove the cheesecake safely from the tin at this point) and then chill for another 30 mins or until ready to eat.

 Before freezing I topped my cheesecake with some of my left over Tiffin chocolate fudge mixture but you could use any chocolate glaze or ganache - something that sets enough to cut cleanly but not too much to not cut well.   

Then eat ... Enjoy.