Here is a picture I took right before serving (it was hard trying to get a picture with everyone drooling over it!)
1 full tray of Oreos (crush in food processor)
1 cup of chopped roasted peanuts (crush in food processor)
1/2 cup of butter, melted
Filling:
4 packages of 8oz cream cheese, softened
5 eggs, room temperature
1.5 cups of firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup of smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup of whipping cream
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
10-12 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups - broken into pieces
Topping:
3 ounces of sour cream
1/2 cup of sugar
a bag of Mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips and remaining whipping cream
What to do (you'll need to make this a head of time because the cheesecake needs to be refrigerated for at least 4 hours - I kept mine in the fridge over night):
Crust:
- Combine the crushed Oreos and peanuts with the melted butter
- Pat into bottom of springform pan and up sides. (The recipe I used said to use a 10 inch pan - I just used whatever one I had home, no idea of it's size)
Filling:
- Beat cream cheese in a bowl (using paddle attachment) until smooth. I added each package one at a time.
- Add eggs, one at a time, making sure they have been beaten well before adding the next one.
- Add sugar, peanut butter and cream; mixing until smooth
side note: *make sure you get all of the lumps out of cream cheese mixture - I had to mix and stir, mix and stir a few times before all the cream cheese lumps had disappeared*
- Stir in vanilla and then fold in your broken peanut butter cup pieces
- Pour your delicious filling into your prepared crust.
next side note: *cheesecake is cooked in a water bath*
- Place springform pan into a larger baking pan - I used a square roaster. I wrapped tin foil all around the bottom and sides of my springform pan so that no water could get into the bottom of my pan.
- Pour hot water into larger pan so that water is about 1 inch up the side of the springform pan.
- Put that cakey happiness in the oven and bake at 275°F for 1.5 hours.
- Make sure the cake is cooked in the middle - it took about 1 hour and 45 minutes for mine to cook.
- Be veryyyy careful removing the cake in the water bath from the oven- it will need to be returned to the oven if you decide to use the sour cream glaze.
Topping:
- Combine the sour cream and sugar and spread on the cheesecake.
- Return to oven for about 5 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and let cool for an hour
- I ran a knife along the edge of the pan to loosen the cake, placed it on a cake tray and refrigerated over night
- Before serving, I chopped my mini Reese Peanut Butter Cups in half and placed them all around the cake (they will stick because of the sour cream glaze)
- I then melted my chocolate chips and whipping cream in a bowl over a boiling pot (but I'm sure the microwave will work too) and drizzled that goodness all over the cake.
And ta-da:
A collage of happiness ;)
To see where I discovered this recipe, check out this link to Food.com
