From Our Kitchen: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake

My dear friend, Michelle, asked the other day for me to put up a cheesecake recipe. Now, while my waist line certainly does not want a cheesecake in the house right now, I was happy to oblige in at least sharing a recipe, and am proud to present you with my favorite cheesecake recipe of all time. Yes, you heard me right: of all time. This is a really simple recipe, and can be prepared in either a traditional springform pan, or just in a pie dish. For the sake of simplicity (ahem, Michelle prefers her recipes simple, yes?), I will share the pie dish version, but please let me know if you would like help with the springform version. This is an old recipe from a cheesecake cookbook my grandparents gave me when I was like 10 years old (obviously me and cheesecakes go wayyyy back).

What You'll Need - Graham Cracker Crust

• 12 graham crackers
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 7 tbsp butter, melted

What You'll Do - Graham Cracker Crust

1. Pulse graham crackers in a food processor, until they become a fine dust. Add in sugar and salt and pulse to combine.
2. Add in butter, pulse to combine, scraping down sides as needed, until a fine meal forms.
3. Dump the graham cracker mixture into a 9-inch pie pan sprayed with Pam. I use my fingers to press down, but you use whatever works best for you. Make sure to leave a little edge!
4. Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes, or until set. Remove from oven, and set aside.

What You'll Need - Cheesecake Filling

• 2 8-oz packages cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup prepared cookie dough, divided (I typically use the pre-made stuff here - a roll is more than enough - but feel free to make your own too!)

What You'll Do - Cheesecake Filling

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Mix cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla at medium speed with an electric mixer until well blended. Add eggs, and mix until well incorporated. Drop 1/2 cup of cookie dough by level teaspoonfuls into batter and gently fold to incorporate.
3. Pour into your graham cracker crust. Top, by teaspoonfuls, with remaining cookie dough.
4. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes, or until center is almost set (should be a nice golden color)
5. Cool, and then refrigerate for at least 3 hours.
6. Enjoy!

I should also note that you can obviously use a pre-made graham cracker crust here, but I am morally opposed to that, so don't tell me if you do. Obviously, kidding (but not really).

From Our Kitchen: Reese Cup Cheesecake

Harris' favorite kind of birthday cake is layered yellow cake with chocolate frosting. While it is a classic, and something I usually make on his birthday, I wanted to try something new, and incorporate some of his other favorite things into birthday treats this year. Hands down, that hubs loves peanut butter and chocolate, particularly in the form of Reese cups. I found this recipe while perusing Pinterest, but I wanted to half it, since it called for enough for two separate cheesecakes. However, I ended up exiting out of the recipe a couple times while making it (I need to update my Pinterest app!), and so some things were halved, and others were not, and I made a few other modifications. Regardless, it was a glorious, marvelous concoction of peanut buttery chocolate goodness. I recommend a tall glass of milk with this one!

What You'll Need for the Brownie Crust:

•  3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour + 1 tbsp
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup peanut butter chips
• 8 peanut butter cups, cut into quarters

What You'll Need for the Cheesecake Filling:

• 2-8oz packages cream cheese, softened
• 3 eggs, room temperature
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup peanut butter (I used PB&Co White Chocolate Wonderful - totes recommend!)
• 1/4 cup whipping cream
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

What You'll Need for the Topping:

• 1/4 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 cup peanut butter chips
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• Bag of Mini Reese (the unwrapped kind)

What You'll Do:

1. Preheat oven to 350, and grease a 9" springform pan with butter (I both sprayed with Pam, and greased, but you probably don't have to do that)
2. For the crust, stir together butter, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl (I used my Kitchenaid for all of this). Add egg, stir until well blended. Stir in cocoa, flour, baking powder, and salt; blend well. Spread in prepared pan.
3. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, or until brownie is just almost done (I cooked mine as the original recipe suggested, and thought the brownie got almost "too done" throughout the process)
4. Immediately after removing the brownie from the oven, sprinkle milk chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and peanut butter cups over brownie surface (cover the whole thing).
5. Turn oven down to 325.
6. For the cheesecake filling, beat cream cheese with mixer until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time. Add sugar, peanut butter, and cream. Mix until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour on top of chips and cups on brownie crust.
7. Double wrap springform pan with aluminum foil to prevent water seeping in. Place springform pan in a larger baking pan. Pour hot water into the larger pan so that the water comes up 1 inch on the sides of the springform pan.
8. Bake at 325 1 to 1-1/2 hours, or until firm and lightly browned
9. Remove from the oven, and cool on a wire rack for one hour
10. Run a knife along the edge of the cake to loosen it from the pan somewhat
11. ***At this point, the original recipe calls for it to be refrigerated for at least 4 hours before decorating, I skipped this step due to lack of time, but you can do that if you so choose!***
12. For topping, bring whipping cream to boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat, and add chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. Stir continuously until melted and smooth. At this point, you can drizzle over the top, serve with individual slices, or, as I did, use as a ganache on top. Decorate with mini reese cups. I then refrigerated overnight.

Don't be alarmed, it really is not as complicated as it sounds, and it is truly worth the effort you put in! 

I did not do a good job of taking photos between steps this time, so here is what I have!

Brownie crust ready to be baked!

Chips and cups on top of crust

Finished product! Yum!!!