How to Make a Huckleberry Cheesecake

We have made our white chocolate cheesecake many times. It’s our most popular cheesecake. This time we put huckleberry flavor and color in one-third of the batter and swirled the two together. You could do the same with other flavors: raspberry, strawberry, blueberry, and more.

• A perfect marriage of flavors! The richness of the white chocolate complements the sweet--tart huckleberry flavor to make a truly scrumptious cheesecake.
• So versatile! As mentioned above, you can use your favorite flavors for the swirls, whether it’s raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, or even pineapple.

See how to make Huckleberry Fudge in the microwave in minutes.

See the recipe for Huckleberry Fudge.

Shopping Tips for Your White Chocolate Huckleberry Cheesecake

Use good quality white chocolate wafers with a high cocoa butter content. Wafers have a finer grind and are richer and smoother than chips. Some white chocolate chips do not melt properly.

Purchasing graham cracker crumbs will save you time and cleanup and usually cost less than crackers. If you use crackers, the easiest way to process them into crumbs is with a food processor.

For a particularly noteworthy cheesecake, make this in a silicone cheesecake pan; it cleans up nicely and easily releases the dessert. We most often use glass based spring form pans. You can slip the cake on the glass bottom onto a serving platter for easy cutting and serving. A glass base avoids the metallic taste that sometimes comes from metal bottoms.

Ingredients:

• 1 2/3 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 4 8-ounce packages of cream cheese
• 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon huckleberry flavor
• 1 1/3 cups white chocolate wafers or 8 ounces of white chocolate baking bars
• 3-4 drops electric purple color

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven 325 degrees.
2. In a springform pan, mix the graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, and sugar together. Press the mixture across the bottom of the pan and up the sides to form the crust. Put the crust in the refrigerator while you mix the filling.
3. With the paddle attachment of your stand-type mixer, beat the cream cheese and sugar together. Add the eggs and beat until smooth. Melt the chocolate. Drizzle in the melted chocolate while it is still warm and while the beaters are running.
4. Pour about 1/3 of the batter into another bowl. To this, add the huckleberry flavor and the drops of purple color and mix in.
5. Pour about 1/2 of the white batter into the crust, then the purple batter, and then the rest of the white batter. Holding a spatula vertically and being careful not to scrape the bottom crust, cut the spatula through the batter creating purple swirls.
6. Bake for 50 minutes to 60 or until the cake is done. (Baking times will vary depending on the pan.) Let cool on a wire rack. After ten minutes, loosen the sides with a spatula and remove the ring. Refrigerate the cheesecake to cool completely.

About Springform Pans and Cheesecakes

I grew up with light-gauge springform pans. They weren't very tough and they tended to leak. And cakes tended to stick. And if cheesecakes leaked, they stuck too.

And then I discovered glass-based springform pans. Big improvement. They still leaked but you could place the dessert while still on the glass base on a serving platter and cut the dessert while still on the pan. The knife wouldn't cut the glass. You could lift servings off the glass base with a thin-bladed spatula. I was happy.

And then I discovered glass-based silicone spiniform pans. The dessert didn't stick to the silicone sidewalls and you can peal the silicone away like a candy wrapper--no stick. I loved it.

The pan, both the glass base and the silicone sides, are dishwasher safe. And they don't take any room in the cupboard. You can roll the silicone sides up like a ribbon and stick it in the drawer. But the real plus is that they're absolutely leak-proof. I'll never give up my glass-based silicone springform pan.

We have eight or ten of them in our test kitchen. We even bake pies in these pans.

Learn more about glass-based silicone springform pans.