Chocolate Orange Cheesecake Mousse

On Saturday, my husband and I celebrated the 10 year anniversary of our first date. Seems so crazy that ten years have passed….what an incredible ten years it has been! David took me to the cutest little jazz club in downtown Portland, called Jazz de Opus, where we heard Dan Balmer, a local jazz musician play. (He has since become one of our VERY favorites!) During our evening, we shared a piece of orange cheesecake.

We tried to go back to Jazz de Opus on another of our first date anniversaries, and discovered it had been turned into Exxxotica Club for Men….not quite the same type of evening…So, since we can’t remember our date by returning to the jazz club, I wanted to be able to give my husband some tasty orange cheesecake.

My husband ADORES my chocolate no-bake cheesecake (he actually requests it more often than any of my other desserts, except possibly apple pie!) I knew that adding orange to my tried and true recipe would be awesome….and oh.my.word. Life changing. (Well, maybe not life changing, but it was infreakingcredible.) My husband said it tasted like Christmas. =)

Here is what you need to make my Chocolate Orange Cheesecake Mousse

Ingredients

*Note that I NEVER measure, but I measured for you all! However, you can really just eyeball this recipe, and it will turn out fine.

4 oz cream cheese (choose regular, neufchatel, 1/3 less fat, non-fat…doesn’t matter!)

8 oz tub whipped topping

1/3 cupish sugar

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 teaspoon orange extract

(If you want to be fancy pants, you can top each cup of mousse with a chocolate covered orange wedge. I would have done this if my children didn’t devour our fresh produce like a bunch of fruit bats.)

To Prepare

1. Whip your cream cheese like Devo…Whip it good. (I toss mine into my Kitchen Aid mixer, and let it go.)

2. Add in your sugar, and whip until smooth, well-incorporated, and non-grainy.

3. Add in the teaspoon of orange extract, and mix again. (I thought the 1 t was a bit strong, so if you want a more subtle orange flavor, go with 3/4 t)

4. Melt your chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl for 1 minute, and stir. Melt for another 30 seconds. Add the melted chocolate chips to the cream cheese mixture, and mix well.

5. Mix in the tub of whipped topping. You don’t need to worry about “folding” it in. It’s okay to just mix it normally in this recipe. There will be plenty of fluff to go around!

At this point, you can scoop up some of this delicious bit of chocolatey orange goodness into individual bowls, or you could double the recipe and put into a prepared graham cracker crust, and serve as an actual slice of cheesecake.

Like I said, you could put some chocolate covered orange wedges, some grated orange peel, fresh whipped cream, etc if you wanted to go all “gourmet” with this dessert…But, I’m a busy lady, and thought this was pretty great just as it is!