Chocolate-orange Cheesecake

This is the other cheesecake the youth served in 1994 at their Dessert Theater. We drizzled a white chocolate sauce over each piece. The play was "An Old-Fashioned Soap Opera" and soap was the main ingredient to this melodrama. We decorated the tabletops with all sorts of soap cleaning products from bottles of Dawn dish soap to Tide laundry detergent. It was a fun afternoon on a cold Feburary day in Iowa. I can't remember for sure, but I might have made a thicker crust for the bottom of the pan. Eleven years kind of clouds the mind on the small details. LOL

• Ready In: 1 hr 25 mins
• Serves: 12-16

Ingredients

• 1⁄3 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 4 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 1⁄3 cups sugar
• 4  eggs
• 2  tablespoons  orange-flavored liqueur (or orange juice)
• 1  teaspoon orange zest
• 3  ounces  semisweet chocolate, melted (or 3 squares)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 325°.
2. Lightly greased bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan.
3. Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs over bottom and sides of pan.
4. In large bowl, beat cream cheese until light and fluffy.
5. Gradually add sugar; beat well.
6. Add eggs, 1 at a time. beating well after each addition. Add liqueur and orange peel; beat 2 minutes at medium speed, scraping sides of bowl occasionally.
7. In small bowl, reserved 1 1/2 cups batter.
8. Pour remaining batter into prepared pan.
9. Slowly blend melted chocolate into reserved batter.
10. Drop SPOONFULS of chocolate batter into batter in pan.
11. Use knife to swirl chocolate batter through light batter to marble.
12. Place shallow pan half-full of water on lower oven rack. Place cheesecake on middle oven rack.
13. Bake at 325° for 1 hour, or until set.
14. Cool in pan.
15. Refrigerate several hours or overnight.
16. Before serving, carefully remove sides of pan.
17. This is very good topped with a white chocolate sauce.