Chocolate Orange Swirl Cheesecake

I'm giving this 4 stars because the original recipe does need a little help. First of all, the orange juice and zest contain nowhere near enough flavor to make this cheesecake taste orange-y at all. I suggest using a teaspoon or two of orange extract as well. I added all the orange flavors to the white batter only. I reserved the two cups for the chocolate before I added them, so the chocolate and orange would contrast nicely. The crust is great. Be sure you let your cream cheese and eggs sit out until they are at room temp, or you'll over beat the batter trying to get the lumps out. Over beating leads to all kinds of cheesecake problems! Anyway, lined my springform pan with foil and baked my cheesecake in a water bath. I had no structural or textural problems except for a few bubbles from slightly over beating. After it was done (60 min), I turned off the oven and let it cool for an hour inside. Then I took it out and let it cool completely on a wire rack. I chilled the cake overnight. I removed the hoop and bottom of the pan (tricky), and scored the top of the cake into 12 even portions. Garnished it with whipped cream from a pastry bag with a large star tip, chocolate filigree, and orange twists. I also served it with the Marmalade Drizzle from the Orange Pudding Cakes with Marmalade Drizzle recipe from this site as a sauce. It was a perfect addition to this cheesecake.  -  21 Sep 2009  (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)

This is a very tasty, easy recipe. I made it with Grand Marnier instead of the orange juice and the cake had a lovely light flavor. It's more of a creamy cheesecake, and it's very dense. My only complaint is that the graham cracker crust was too crumbly. When I was marbling my two batters the crust was pulled away from the pan and into the cake. When it was done baking and chilling the crust stayed mostly together, but I think it was just fused to the cake. Next time I think I'll make a chocolate cookie crust and use a darker chocolate in the cake (the semi-sweet didn't prove to be quite chocolatey enough). Thanks very much for sharing this recipe.  -  11 Feb 2002  (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)

Oh my goodness was this good the only change I made was to use 4 teaspoons orange concentrate instead of 2 tablespoons of orange juice, because I really like the taste of orange and chocolate. I also melted the chocolate in the microwave. Thanks so much for the wonderful recipe  -  13 Feb 2007  (Review from Allrecipes USA and Canada)