Reincarnation

When I was a (chubby, chocolate craving) child, it was a tradition to make chocolate pudding out of all the Easter and Nikolo/Krampus chocolates I would get. A) because my Mum did not want me to overindulge on all that chocolate, b) because the quality of the chocolate on its own wasn't really great and c) simply because I loved making chocolate pudding in our double-bottomed milk pan, carefully stirring in all the ingredients (milk, eggs, starch, a shot of coffee or rum and of course, the chocolate) until the pudding was ready. Mmmmhhhm, how I loved that ritual and the outcome!

This habit is obviously still ingrained in me and I never eat chocolate easter bunnies, santas or nikolos, preferring to incorporate them in some dessert project or other. This is partly because most of these seasonal offerings are made of milk chocolate and I am, as we know, a dark chocolate gal.

When the guys below were still keeping a vigil on my living room shelf after Christmas, I decided to recycle them in a cake, preferably one that would allow me to sneak in the rest of the Christmas cookies as well.
The answer...chocolate cheesecake!

I needed additional chocolate (I used dark chocolate with 70% cocoa content) and cookies for the base, but I was still very pleased with myself for putting the nikolos to good use.

(Recipe coming up)