Chocolate Ripple Cheesecake

It’s hard to find my lactose-free cream cheese, but Whole Foods had some in stock, so I decided to make this chocolate ripple cheesecake. It was fabulous! (The kids didn’t like it, but one child doesn’t like cheesecake and the other is notoriously picky; it just meant more cheesecake for us, which was great!)

Note that I made a mistake when dividing the batter and adding the chocolate – I poured the amount intended for bowl 1 into bowl 2, and then ended up with the leftover batter in bowl 1. I compensated by adding melted chocolate as needed to make sure the gradient of brown still worked. However, since the chocolate parts were tastier than the white part, I have no regrets! I’ll write it down my way below. I used leftover chocolate to drizzle on top, but this is entirely optional.

24 chocolate sandwich cookies
4 Tbsp. lactose-free butter, melted
32 oz lactose-free cream cheese (4 8-oz packages)
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 cups lactose-free heavy cream (mine was vegan)
1 ½ Tbsp. gelatin powder
2 cups semisweet chocolate, melted, divided

Place cookies into a ziploc bag and crush using a rolling pin until fine crumbs form. Pour cookie crumbs into a bowl with melted butter and mix until well combined. (I did this whole step in a food processor.)

Pour crust mixture into a 9-inch (23-cm) springform cake pan. Use a measuring cup to press down on the cookies to form an even base. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes.

In a large bowl, whisk together cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth.

Heat the heavy cream until hot, then add the gelatin and let it rest for 1 minute.

Slowly whisk the heavy cream into the cream cheese until smooth.

Working quickly, divide the cheesecake batter in 4 bowls and add melted chocolate, as follows:
- bowl 1 – whatever is left over in your large bowl will become bowl 1
- bowl 2 – 3 cups batter + 1 Tbsp. melted chocolate
- bowl 3 – 2 ½ cups batter + 4 Tbsp. melted chocolate
- bowl 4 – 1 cup batter + 5 Tbsp. melted chocolate
Honestly, the exact measurements aren’t crucial; the important part is that each bowl should vary in color, so that bowl 1 is white and the batter gets progressively darker in each bowl. Feel free to add extra chocolate in the smaller bowls to achieve this.

To assemble the cheesecake, slowly pour the contents of bowl 1 into the center of the pan. Once batter has spread, repeat with the remaining bowls in numerical order. If your bowls have sat out too long and the consistency is too stiff, microwave for 30 seconds before pouring – the top of my cheesecake would have been smoother if I had done that.

Cover the top of the pan tightly with plastic wrap and chill for 4 hours or overnight in the fridge before serving.