Mascarpone Cheesecake with Almond and Walnut Crust

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/mascarpone-cheesecake-with-almond-crust-recipe/index.html

My brother-in-law Francis likes soft cheesecake.  I did some recipe search online and found that many of them require mascarpone cheese.  It's on sale at a store so I bought one for whenever I can get a good recipe.  Then I forgot about it.  2 days ago I saw it in the fridge, oh no, the best before date is coming soon!  So I found this cheesecake recipe to try it out.  I like it with hazelnut drizzle too.

Even though the comments on this recipe already said it's not as sweet as the other cheesecakes, but I still reduced the sugar to 1 cup only.  I also added walnut powder because I only had 2/3 cup of ground almond at home.

I don't have a pan large enough to hold my 9" springform pan in water bath.  So after wrapped the springform with 3 layers of heavy duty foil, I added only a little bit of water in, then fill another deep pan of hot water and leave it on a lower rack.



I carefully make sure I don't over beat the batter after adding the eggs.  Yeah! No crack!  But got some small holes from bubbles.  I can live with those.



I left the cake in the oven over night to cool it down.  It separated from the ring quite easily without tearing the side.



The idea of mixing Nutella and whipping cream is so convenient and tasty.  It covered the holes too.

Finally got a good take of the slice.



The texture is soft because of the mascarpone cheese.  However, the flavour is not what I was looking for.  Ho found the taste different from other cheesecakes he had eaten.  He didn't like it though.  It's too early to say, because after leaving it in the fridge for a few extra hours, he said the cheesecake tasted much better!  I once heard that cheesecakes had to be "seasoned", i.e. you have to let it sit in the fridge for at least 24 hours.  The longer the better taste it will have.  It's proved to be true now.  It was a good decision to reduce the sugar.  I like the sweetness level of this cake, especially with the hazelnut drizzle.  Everything is just right.

I still think that the cake looks very pretty by itself. :-)