No-bake Spiderweb Cheesecake

Halloween is nigh and we are busy getting ready. For this week's Monday Night Martha we decided to spin a web of artery clogging goodness and make Martha Stewart's No-bake Spiderweb Cheesecake.

This recipe is not for the faint of heart as it calls for 32 oz. of cream cheese and 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream to make the filling. Not to mention the stick and a half of butter in the crust. If you are trying to bulk up to fill out your Chewbacca costume, eating several servings of this cake could be the ticket. Otherwise, you will want to invite a gang over to help you.

Creamy and rich are the keywords of the day. The recipe was easy to follow and we were pleased with the results. Our ganache spiderweb actually looked like the picture. Hooray! We went out on our own and made our decorative spider out of extra ganache. It took some scanning of the cookie aisle to find the chocolate wafers called for in the recipe, but we were able to locate them. They come in a long narrow yellow box.

Also, the recipe called for the oddly precise amount of 61% cocoa. We managed to get close with 60%, and frankly didn't think there was a taste difference. (A typo, perhaps, Queen M.?)

This cake would be great for a Halloween party because a little goes a long way, though we'd probably buy a bag of plastic spiders to disperse on each of the plates. Just remember that thing going bump in the night may be your distended stomach.