Preparation

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Step 1

Heat oven to 350°F (180°C). Wrap exterior of a 9-inch springform pan (including base) tightly in a triple layer of foil; set aside.

Step 2

Make crust: Stir together cracker crumbs, melted butter, and sugar in a medium bowl. Press crumb mixture firmly into bottom of pan and up the sides to about 1-inch from the top of the pan. I like to use the bottom and outside of a 1-cup measure to help press them in firmly. Bake until set, about 10 minutes. Let cool in pan on a wire rack. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees.

Step 3

Make raspberry sauce for swirl: Process raspberries with sugar in a food processor until smooth, about 30 seconds. Pass puree through a fine sieve into a small bowl; discard solids. Set aside.

Step 4

Make cheesecake: Put cream cheese in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment; mix on medium speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. With mixer on low speed, add remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar in a slow, steady stream; scrape down bowl. Add salt and vanilla; mix until well combined. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing each until just combined and scraping down the bowl. Pour cream cheese filling over crust.

Step 5

Using a squeeze bottle, piping bag or a zip-lock bag with a tiny corner snipped off, place tiny droplets of raspberry sauce all over top of cake. Use a toothpick or skewer to swirl the sauce and filling together decoratively. I had extra sauce; it makes a delicious dessert sauce to serve with the cake.

Step 6

Bake cake: Set cake pan inside a large, shallow roasting pan — I set mine inside a 12-inch round saucepan. Transfer to oven. Carefully pour or ladle boiling water into roasting pan until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until cake is set but still slightly wobbly in center, 60 to 65 minutes. (This always takes longer in my oven because I always fail to seal the foil around the pan well enough that water doesn’t get in. Just keep baking it until it seems mostly set, like loose Jell-O. A toothpick inserted near the center should not have wet, thin batter on it when removed)

Step 7

Transfer cake pan to rack; let cake cool to room temperature then refrigerate, uncovered, at least 6 hours or overnight. Before unmolding, run a knife around edge of cake.

Step 8

If you’d like to serve this with a chocolate sauce, bring heavy cream to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat, stir in chocolate until melted.

Step 9

Serve cake in wedges, with any leftover raspberry sauce or chocolate sauce, or both.

Chef’s notes

Chocolate wafers:

I am ever on the hunt for chocolate cookies to make crumb crusts with. Nabisco chocolate wafers are the classic, but I can’t find them anywhere anymore. For a while, I used chocolate Teddy Grahams, because they were cute, but the artificial flavors became cloying. I know there are people who painstakingly remove the filling from Oreos for theirs, but I could never be trusted with that. This time, I tried Leibniz brand cocoa biscuits, something I can disturbingly not find a link to online anywhere (it’s the chocolate cookie, not the chocolate-coated one), which I found at a nearby bodega (I love NYC), which at least had fairly straightforward ingredients. When I found the crumb color a little pale, I added a couple tablespoons (just eyeballed it) of black cocoa powder I’d unearthed while packing to make them more Oreo-ish. If you’re feeling particularly devoted, the chocolate cookie I use for my Homemade Oreos is very, very quick and easy to make and makes excellent crumbs. You’ll make more cookies than you need for crumbs but nobody on earth will mind.

Even more chocolaty crumbs:

The cheesecake crust used here and here has ground bar chocolate in it too and it makes a firm cookie crust with a much stronger chocolate flavor. It would be lovely here.

If you don’t want chocolate crumbs:

Of course, graham or even digestive biscuit crumbs would work here. You might find that different brands and different crumb sizes absorb differently. If yours are too dry to build a crust, add a touch more butter; if they’re too wet, add another spoonful of crumbs.

If you want more chocolate intensity:

We’ve added a almost inch-thick ganache layer to the bottom crust of two cheesecakes in the past. You could do the same here, if you wish, but be sure that you are using a springform with 3-inch sides as it will be taller than the one I’m showing here.

To amp up the raspberry portion:

If you’d like the raspberry flavor to be within and not just on top, try this

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Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake