Mmmmm...Cheesecake!

So, Friday I made cheesecake for a little get together Navy Wife Kim planned for last night with some other wives on base, and it turned out awesome...

I've made cheesecake a bunch of times before, and I always use the same recipe ( http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/New-York-Cheesecake-102592 ) then I put a raspberry glaze on it and we're good to go. This time I wanted to make a peanut butter swirl cake, so instead of trying a completely new recipe, I just changed the one I always used.

First of all, the crust. Instead of graham crackers, I used Oreos (yummm). I then crushed some peanut butter cups and put that on top of the crust.

Then, I made the batter per the recipe except I omitted the orange zest completely and only used about half of a lemon worth of zest. On a side note, do not neglect to scrape down your bowl between each egg addition. Yeah, it kinda sucks, but its completely necessary.

Then I separated about 1/3 of the batter into a different bowl and added two heaping spoonfuls of smooth peanut butter to it. Then I layered the batter over the crust/peanut butter cups with a layer of regular batter, then the peanut butter batter, then the rest of the normal batter. Then I kinda swirled it together with a butter knife. Was that step completely necessary? No - since the peanut butter batter basically sinks to the bottom, but it was worth a shot.

Then I followed the recipe for baking it. Except I always use a water bath even though the recipe doesn't call for it. (Basically put some water in an oven-safe pan and put it on the bottom rack in the oven to prevent cracking) And my cheesecake has NEVER been done in the 1 hour the recipe calls for. It's taken anywhere from 3 to 5 hours for my cheesecake to cook through. Either every oven I've ever used (3 in all for this recipe) is edged up, or the author of the recipe is on crack.

And since I'm a strong believer in decorating desserts (at least they'll look pretty even if you bombed the recipe) onto the finishing touches...

I decided to do a chocolate and peanut butter drizzle, so I got a nice Lindt chocolate bar and some Reeses peanut butter chips. Then I assembled a ghetto rigged double boiler (aka a Pyrex bowl placed over a pan) and first melted the chocolate. Then I scooped the melted chocolate in a plastic bag and cut off the tiniest bit of the corner. Then I used that bag to drizzle chocolate on the cake.

Next I did the same thing with the peanut butter chips and I even used what was left of the melted peanut butter to help secure peanut butter cups around the edge. Et voila...a delicious and beautiful cheesecake! It was definitely a hit last night!

If you have any questions about how I executed this recipe, be sure to ask!

Until next time...