Daring Bakers: Chocolate Chip and Butterscotch Cheesecake

The April 2009 Challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge. When I first read about this month’s challenge I was so excited but at a total loss for what kind of cheesecake to make! There are just so many possibilities… chocolate, strawberry, vanilla bean, coffee, peanut butter, oreo, caramel… the list goes on and on. Ultimately I decided on a Chocolate Chip and Butterscotch cheesecake with an oreo crust and chocolate shavings on the top.
Here is the basic recipe

Crust:
2 cups oreo cookie crumbs
1 stick butter, melted
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Cheesecake:
3 sticks of cream cheese, (total of 24 oz) room temperature
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean which is what I use – and so flavorful)
1 tbsp liqueur

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan – I used a spring form 9 inch pan and a few little ramekins because I had so much batter. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too – baker’s choice – I chose just on the bottom. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan and ramekins on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan and ramekins into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done – this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Well… almost… I was feeling pretty decadent when I made these so I topped the cheesecakes with even more chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and chocolate shavings.

This is a great recipe and I will definitely keep it in my books! All the butterscotch and chocolate made the cheesecake super rich and delicious.

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