Monika's Pepparkakscheesecake

A clever recipe made for a Swedish and Swedish American audience: A cheesecake with taste of 'pepparkakor' (ginger snaps). 

• 

  The lovely Monika Ahlberg - chef and food writer and the creator behind the gingersnap cheesecake

• We like Monika Ahlberg a lot. She’s a Swedish chef, food editor, and author of 15 cookbooks (and she has also been a ballet dancer). Monika is married to the prominent actor/director Thommy Berggren, with whom she has three children. Anyway, we found a clever recipe by Monika that seems like it was made for a Swedish-American audience: A cheesecake with taste of “pepparkakor” (ginger snaps).

• 

  May we call it a Swedish-American love story? The gingersnap cheesecake (pepparkakscheesecake) by Monika Ahlberg. Courtesy of alltommat.se

• Ingredients
  35 ginger snaps
  5 tablespoons (75 grams) butter

• Filling:
  8 ounces (250 grams) white chocolate
  16 ounces (400 grams) Philadelphia cream cheese
  4 ounces Kesella (a kind of Swedish curd; in lieu of Kesella use Ricotta or drain cottage cheese overnight in a cheesecloth to thicken it).
  1/2 cup (4 ounces) sugar
  3 ounces (75 grams) dark chocolate

• Decoration:
  Lingonberries (or any other berry)

• Instructions
  Preheat oven to 350˚F. Melt the butter and combine it with the ginger snaps in a mixer. Thumb out the dough into a spring pan, and bake for 8-10 minutes.
  Melt the white chocolate in a water bath. Chop the dark chocolate, but not too finely. Mix the cheese with the Kesella (or Ricotta or cottage cheese), and sugar. Slowly add the melted white chocolate to the mixture, stirring constantly. Then add the chopped dark chocolate.
  Fill the pan and put it in a cool place until ready to serve, or freeze it and take it out 1 hour before serving. Decorate with berries.