Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake
I’m recently guest posted this over at Sweet Treats and More for her Seven Days of Valentine’s Sweets filled with a whole lot of treats and decadence.
And speaking of decadence, I literally have been wanting to make this cheesecake for over two years but couldn’t justify making an entire cheesecake that is so sinful without a good reason. Valentine’s day is totally enough justification and the perfect reason to make this creamy peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake.
I caught my husband dipping the extra Oreos in the the leftover cheesecake batter. “There’s no way this can’t turn out good.”
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Can you hear your treadmill calling you? It can wait.
The chocolate ganache is pretty thin going on but it sets up nice and thick in the fridge.
Better use a cookie sheet to catch the extra chocolate.
The layers are supposed to be even but either I eyeballed it wrong or the weight of the top layer condensed the bottom layer. Any way you stack it, it’s good.
Peanut Butter Cheesecake
Ingredients
Crust:
- 1 1/2 cups crushed Oreo cookies, about 15 cookies
Cheesecake:
- 4 8 ounce packages cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
Chocolate Ganache:
- 1/2 cup whipping cream
- 1 cup milk chocolate chocolate chips
Garnish:
- Reese Peanut Butter cups, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Press crushed Oreo cookies into bottom of 10-inch spring-form pan. Bake 5-6 minutes or until set. Do not burn! Cool on wire rack while preparing cake. Reduce oven heat to 300 degrees.
- Beat softened cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth and creamy; add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Divide batter equally between two bowls.
- Melt 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips; stir into one of the bowls of cheesecake batter; pour batter into crust prepared pan. Microwave peanut butter until soft, about 20-25 seconds; stir into other bowl of cheesecake batter and pour on top of the chocolate layer.
- Bake cheesecake at 300 degrees for 50-60 minutes or until center is almost set (not jiggly). Do not overbake. Don't worry if there are a couple of cracks. They will come together when refrigerated and were covering it in chocolate anyway.
- Place pan on cooling rack; cool approximately 1 hour. Carefully run a knife around edge of pan and remove sides of pan. Place cream in a microwave safe bowl and heat for one minute or boiling. Pour chocolate chips into cream and let sit until soft. Stir until chips are melted and mixture is smooth and creamy. Pour chocolate over top and sides of cheesecake. You may want to place your cheesecake on a cookie sheet to catch the run off. Refrigerate overnight; cut optional Reese Peanut Butter cups into quarters and garnish top of cheesecake. Serve with a dallop of whipped cream. It's great to cut the richness. Refrigerate leftovers.
Notes
I made this last year for my sister’s birthday and now she is requesting it for Thanksgiving! Thank you for this amazing cheesecake!
You are welcome!
I followed the recipe but mine did not turn out looking that way. I can only hope it tastes better than it looks.
Oh no. Let me know how it turned out.
can this be frozen?
In my experience, cheesecake freezes well!
How do you think this would work in a 9×13 pan? I’d like to do cheesecake bars. Will this recipe be way too much for my pan?
I think it should be fine but I haven’t tried it.
I baked this over the weekend. I have baked plenty of cheesecakes before and this recipe was the easiest to of all of them. Everyone LOVED this cheesecake! My husband must have said,”WOW!” at least 20 times when he tried it. I did make one slight change to the recipe, I sprinkled crushed peanuts ontop of the ganache. It added a wonderful lightly salted taste to the sweetness of the chocolate. Thank you so much for posting it.
You’re welcome!
This sounds really nice. gonna make this for tea tonight. Thanks. Simon
This cheesecake was such a hit last year!!!! I am going to make it again for the holidays!!! Thanks for such an awesome recipe 🙂
Glad you loved it!
I made this the other day as I thought it looked a bit different, it’s literally like diabetes in a cake because it’s just soooo rich but it’s really really good. Being English, the measurements were a bit strange for me and I used actual chocolate instead of chocolate chips so I just had to wing it a bit (I used 250g of each chocolate). But after sharing with family and friends I ended up having to print the recipe up as so many people wanted it. I totally recommend this, it’s a new favourite of mine!
Yay! Glad you enjoyed it!
I had to add melted butter to the crushed Oreo’s because they wouldnt stick together to create a nice pie crust
That looks soooo delicious! And it is in my oven now…
If I cut the recipe in half, could I use a store-bought Oreo crust?
I’m not sure. But I think you could. I would have to try it.
can we replace eggs in this receipe…
I’m not sure how you would do that? What were you going to try?
I made this the other day for my husband’s birthday. I looked at several chocolate peanut butter cheesecakes, and this by far looked the most delicious and appealing to the eye. Now, I am not much of a baker–but this turned out to be a big hit with him and our friends who celebrated with us. It was gone instantly!
I did a couple of modifications, and it still turned out perfectly. First, since nearly every ingredient already contains sugar, I added 3/4 cups of sugar instead of a full cup. That missing 1/4 wasn’t even noticed. Second, I did experiment by using only 3 8oz. cream cheese packets–again, it was perfectly fine without it.
I was wondering if I could make mini cheese cakes with is recipe? I have a silver ann. to do in july. Am looking for ez and simple desserts.
I’ve never done these mini but I’m sure you could. I just don’t know what the bake time would be…
no butter needed for the crust?
Nope! I’m sure you could add some (I mean who doesn’t like butter in everything) but it’s not needed.
what kind of pan can i use if i don’t have a springform pan?
Ooh that’s tricky. Springform pan’s release the cheesecake easily that’s why it’s nice. You could try a regular round baking pan but you would have to make sure that it’s lined with parchment paper. It might be a little hard getting pieces out.
Can you use a pre-made, store bought oreo pie crust?
Sure! I don’t see why not all though all of the batter will not fit in one pie crust. Maybe two?
I just wanted to share my experience in adjusting size/bake time. I decided to make mini cheesecakes by using both a regular size cupcake pan and a large cupcake pan. I didn’t check on them until after 30 minutes of baking and they were both completely done by then. The regular size was probably over baked by a couple minutes. My advice for anyone else is to check on them after 20 minutes and go from there.
your husband is a VERY lucky man.. browsing just a couple of your recipes is making my mouth water and my jeans feel tighter lol
I really want to try this chocolate peanut butter cheesecake recipe!!!
No butter with the Oreos in the crust? Scared! But I’m trying it anyway! Looks delish!
You could definitely add a little butter. It would not hurt!
Looks great! I have a question about the crust….do you grease the pan prior to pressing the crushed oreos? Also, do you include the middle part of the oreos in this or just the cookie part?
Thanks!
I didn’t grease the pan but I don’t think it would hurt. I left the entire oreo in as I think it helps it stick together. A little butter probably wouldn’t hurt either.
In the last 8 months, my boyfriend and I moved in together, and I’ve taken up baking and cooking as hobbies. My boyfriend has no problems at all with my baking, but it wasn’t until I made this that his eyes grew wide and he actually stared at me in amazement, he was so impressed. Also tried the bow tie chicken Caesar salad, and he loved that as well.
Thank you so much for sharing such yummy and amazingly simple recipes. You’ve helped turn this frozen dinner-dependent female into somebody who’s gradually learning her way around a kitchen.
Angie,
You’re welcome! Sounds like you’re a natural…
This is great, chocolate,peanut butter and cheese cake combination. Yum!
This looks incredible. The ultimate indulgence!
Christy,
This was amazing. My husband’s new favorite cheesecake for sure. I made a gluten-free version and posted it on my site tonight. Thanks for the recipe! (my thighs will not be thanking you, however).
–Michelle
Ooh! I’ll have to check it out!!
in order to make this gluten free you would just need gluten free oreo-type cookies, right???
I made the crust but didn’t read the part that said to turn the oven done to 300! So it cooked at 350 for almost 50 min before I noticed. Hopefully it’s not too burnt:(
I made this for Valentine’s Day and it was fabulous. It’s going into my recipe binder. My husband loved it and so did everyone of my kids. Next time I make it I will add more peanut butter though.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh do I wish I would have had this earlier. YUM! I saved it though and we will see if I can wait until then, but I have saved it to my folder for Father’s Day Menu ideas this year.(well, and my cheesecake folder too of course). This looks just amazing.
Thank you!!!!!
OMG looks divine!
looks yummmmmmmmy!
Holy cow, seriously? Thanks for making it look so easy too! I definitely could not allow this to stay in my house after making it though!
This looks amazing! I have nominated you for the Liebster Award!
I made this for Christmas, and it was sooooooooooo good. I got so many compliments on it. Very rich and very good!!!
Holy Cow, I am in love with this!
Oh no you di-n’t ! REEEly I’m watching my girlish figure…this looks unbelievable. Stop it already!!
This looks sooooooooooooooo good! So much cream cheese but I have to try it! I wonder if I could only use 3 and not see a big difference?
I’m not sure. A lot of cheesecakes only use 3 cream cheeses so maybe it would work?
This looks amazing!
This is decadent for sure and exactly the kind of dessert I’d want for Valentine’s day! Or every day…