Hershey's Special Dark Truffle Brownie Cheesecake (and Minis)

For Thanksgiving, I was really craving something chocolate (blame it on the fact that I'm pregnant) so when I saw this recipe for Hershey's Special Dark Truffle Brownie Cheesecake, I HAD to make it. Look at all those delicious words put together. How could it be bad?

As I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before, I don't have a springform pan, so I had to use an eight-inch round cake pan to make this instead. I knew beforehand that might cause problems, but I didn't realize that it would significantly disrupt my plans...but we'll get to that.

My brownie layer cooked quickly, and rose to where it took more than half of the pan, not leaving much room for the cheesecake part. This left me with over half of the cheesecake batter. I whipped up a quick graham cracker crust, omitting the cinnamon, and pressed it into my mini cheesecakes pan. I poured the remainder of the batter into the wells and popped it in the oven alongside my truffle brownie cheesecake, not knowing whether either would turn out.

My truffle brownie cheesecake ended up looking pretty crappy, to the point that I didn't even bother to take a picture of it. I still lack pretty drizzling skills so the chocolate drizzles looked pretty lame.

The tops of my mini cheesecakes turned out quite poofy, so to alleviate that I topped them with dollops of leftover ganache from my german chocolate cake that I had frozen. I reheated it in the microwave, stirring often, until it was smooth then I put it in a decorating bag and, using one of my decorating tips, made pretty little stars on each one.

They ended up being the "main attraction", so to speak. My truffle brownie cheesecake, sadly, in addition to being ugly, wasn't all that great. The brownie part was overcooked. I suspect this had much to do with the location of the rack in my oven, which I've since fixed and haven't had any problems with. If this had turned out correctly, I suspect this would have been a great recipe. The cheesecake part was delicious. Paired with the graham cracker crust and adorned with the dark chocolate ganache, as in my minis, it tasted wonderful.

My verdict:  I think I'll give this recipe another try in the future. Preferably, when I have a springform pan and when my oven is cooperating. I'm glad I was able to adapt to the situation though and saved the dessert table with my mini cheesecakes.