Donna Hay's dark chocolate and coconut cheesecakes

Donna Hay strikes again. Here are her dark chocolate and coconut cheesecakes from the April May 2013 magazine. Just slightly divine I must say. Visit Donna Hay's website for lots more beautiful recipes.

I made these cheesecakes in mini and medium size, using mini muffin and traditional muffin tins for the bases. The mini size were great for a quick bite, the medium-sized great as a special dessert for our family.



I followed Donna's recipe with the following changes.

• I used dessicated coconut, rather than shredded coconut (only as that is the product I had in the pantry)
• The recipe calls for two egg whites to make the bases. I kept the egg yolks and added them to the chocolate mixture. 
• I used 300g cream cheese, rather than a mixture of cream cheese and ricotta.
• Donna's recipe made a pomegranate syrup. I didn't think the recipe needed any extra sugar, so I just used plain fresh pomegranate seeds.

What you'll need

Made 6 medium and 10 mini cheesecakes.

For the base

265g dessicated or shredded coconut

150g caster sugar

2 egg whites (but keep the yolks)

150g melted butter

For the filling

300g softened cream cheese

100g caster sugar

150g dark chocolate, melted

2 eggs (plus the two extra egg whites from the base)

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Half a cup of pomegranate seeds for serving

What to do

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Prepare your muffin tins with non-stick paper. Donna Hay has a great idea of using two strips of baking paper (about 5cm wide and 15cm long), arranged in a cross pattern inside each muffin tin. Works an absolute treat, as you use the overhang as a handle to pull them out. Very clever!

Make the base mixture. Combine all the base ingredients in a bowl. Mix well with a spoon. For the mini muffin tins, spoon two teaspoons of mixture into each tin, and press it down with your fingers. Make sure to spread the mixture evenly over the sides and base. For the larger muffin tin size, use about half a cup of mixture in each tin. Press down with your fingers and spread evenly over the base and sides.

Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. But keep the oven on.

Now make the filling. Add all the ingredients into a bowl and process with an electric mixer until smooth (about 2 minutes). Pour carefully into the prepares bases until the mixtures just comes to the top edge of the base. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes for the mini cheesecakes, and 25 minutes for the larger versions. They are done if you wiggle the tray and the cheesecake mixture only jiggles a small amount.

Remove from the oven, allow to cool to room temperature then place in the fridge to cool for at least an hour to chill.

To serve, remove the cheesecakes from the tin, peeling off any baking paper. Place on a serving plate. Spoon over some fresh pomegranate seeds and eat with delight.