Recipes Discovered

Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake Recipe

I absolutely love peanut butter, so when I saw this recipe for peanut butter cheesecake, I had to try it. And what’s not to like about peanut butter, chocolate, and cheesecake?

For the record, I made a few changes to this recipe, but all the basics are the same. To make the crust, I crushed up a whole package of Oreo cookies and mixed the cookie crumbs with crushed peanuts and melted butter. I pressed the mixture onto the bottom and sides of a 9 inch spring-form pan. It forms a pretty thick crust, but still make sure it’s firmly packed. >>

For the filling, I started by beating 32 ounces of cream cheese together until it was smooth. I would recommend using a stand mixer because by the time I had all the ingredients combined, my bowl was nearly overflowing and was difficult to mix with a hand mixer. To the blended cream cheese, I added one egg at a time and then beat the mixture for a couple minutes. I then added sugar, creamy peanut butter, and heavy cream and beat until it was smooth. By hand, I stirred in vanilla extract and chopped peanut butter cups, and then poured the filling into the crust. I couldn’t fit all the filling into the spring-form pan, so I placed an Oreo cookie in the bottom of four 4-ounce ramekins and filled them with the remaining filling.

I placed the cheesecake and the ramekins in a preheated 350 degree oven with a baking sheet under the cheesecake. Sometimes the Oreo crust can leak out of the pan, so the baking sheet is just some insurance over a big mess. After 15 minutes, I turned the oven down to 200 degrees. I let the ramekins bake for an hour before taking them out of the oven and letting the cheesecake bake for another hour. The cheesecake wasn’t quite set after it baked for 2 hours, so I ended up letting it bake close to 2 hours and 30 minutes before it was set. Then, I ran a knife around the outside of the crust, put the cheesecake back in the oven, and turned the oven off. After two hours, I took the cheesecake out of the oven and placed it in the refrigerator to chill over night.

The next day, I made a quick chocolate topping for the cheesecake. I mixed together 5 ounces (about 3/4 cup) of semi sweet chocolate chips and 1/4 cup of sour cream over low heat until the chocolate melted. I let it cool for a couple of minutes before spreading it over the cheesecake and then placed the cheesecake back in the refrigerator for an hour to let the chocolate set.

Wow. That’s all I can say. I absolutely loved this cheesecake. It is so rich and creamy, it’s insane. I think you would die if you actually ate 1/10 of it (the recommended serving). The filling has just the right amount of peanut butter flavor and the peanut butter cups running though it are like hidden little surprises. The chocolate topped is a superb match to the filling. And I love the thickness of the crust because it actually creates a balance to the sweet, creamy filling. The ramekins turned out different than the cheesecake, if that’s possible. They were very thick and rich like the cheesecake, but they lacked the creaminess. It was a good experiment though. And the real cheesecake is still outstanding.