Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Chocolate Chunk Peanut Butter Cheesecake

So today I got finished with work a little early (I was bleaching a barn in preparation for staining it later in the week) and had a couple of hours to kill so I flipped through my cheesecake recipe book and found this one that seemed to really make my mouth water.  After breathing in bleach fumes all day, for some reason it took a couple of minutes to even warm up to cheesecake at all.  I liked the thought of starting my cheesecake journey with a deviation from my 3,2,1 recipe and trying something new.  This one has 4 packages of cream cheese instead of 3, 4 eggs instead of 2 and a cup and a quarter of sugar instead of the sweetened condensed milk.  In addition it has a tsp of vanilla and 3 Tbsp of fresh squeezed lemon juice, a cup of peanut butter and a bag of chocolate chunks.

Here's some cheesecake basics for those who don't know.  On every recipe that contains cream cheese and eggs I always start with the cream cheese in my kitchenaid stand mixer.  I beat the crap out of it until it is nice and smooth, scraping the sides a couple of times along the way.  Once it is sufficiently beaten, I add an egg at a time and beat the crap out of it some more in between each one.  They say this helps to prevent the huge crevices from appearing once the cheesecake is cooled.  Oh yeah and you start with all room temperature  ingredients, that's key.  A good plan, in my humble ( or not so humble) opinion is to wake up in the morning and think to yourself, "wow, I want cheesecake for breakfast!" and immediately go to the fridge and get out all the ingredients.  They will be nice and room temperature by the time you get off work so you can jump right in to baking.  And yes children, cheesecake is a perfectly acceptable breakfast food.  It's like a cream cheese covered bagel, only better and no bagel.  So back to making the cheesecake, once you beat the crap out of the eggs and cheese, it is safe to add the rest of your ingredients and mix them just to combine everything.  Today while I was making this new recipe, I probably beat the egg and cheese mixture for around 15 minutes once it was all said and done.

Now back to the cheesecake at hand.  The crust called for peanut butter sandwich cookies, but my ghetto grocery store didn't have those, so I had to settle for some store brand oreos with chocolate cream filling.  It had 4 Tbsp of butter and 1/4 cup flour, but as I mentioned the other day, the butter usually isn't necessary when using sandwich cookies because the fat content in the filling.  And if you are using a springform pan, they tend to leak if you get too much butter on the bottom.  Definitely should have listened to my own advice, but I wanted to try and follow the recipe as closely as possible.  Unfortunately about 20 minutes into baking the house began to fill with smoke because the butter was dripping from the pan onto the bottom of the oven.  Another piece of advice, always put some foil or a cookie sheet under your springform pan in case you have a leak.  Steaks and ribs taste great when they've been smoked on the grill....cheesecakes not so much.  Well, actually I've never tried that yet...hmmmm I may be on to something here.  

Off the bunny trail, and back to my cheesecake.

I got it all together and threw it into the oven like the directions said and walked off to see how the nursery was coming.  My mom was over helping my wife with some decorating so I went to peak in and got busy talking.....that's when I noticed the house filling with smoke.  So I went in and put the cookie sheet under to catch my drips and opened the front door to air out the house.  It just so happened that my neighbor from up the street had just pulled up to pick through my trailer full of lumber I need to haul to the dump.  We just recently met so I got carried away in conversation.....have you noticed that nowhere in this story have I mentioned setting the timer?  That's because I didn't!!!!  UGH, I hate my memory.  So my mom pokes her head out the door and yells at me that my cheesecake is about two inches above the top of the pan.

The author of my cookbook seems to really really not like springform pans.  He swears by cheesecake pans for a list of reasons.  I personally don't own a "cheesecake pan" because I haven't been able to find one in my brief search.  I do however, own about 15 springform pans so I'm doing alright with them....All that to say this, I think I should have used a bigger pan.  But like I said, I wanted to follow the recipe as closely as possible.

Once I got back into the house and saw my cheesecake I was kinda frustrated, but not too bad.  The top was just a bit too browned which was easily taken care of by tearing the edges off and "tasting" it.  This particular recipe has a sour cream based topping sprinkled with chocolate chunks.  It really cleans up the appearance, but I would say it still falls into the ugly cheesecake category.

The worst part about cheesecake....I can't tell you until tomorrow how it tastes!  So stay tuned.

crust
1 1/4 cup cookies
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup butter melted

filling
4 packages cream cheese
1 1/4 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 cup peanut butter
3 T lemon juice
1 t vanilla
2 cups chocolate chunks

topping
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 T lemon juice
1/2 t vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chunks

Bake 45-55 minutes at 350, let cool 10 minutes, then put topping on and sprinkle chocolate chunks on top, bake for 5 mins more.

2 comments:

  1. nice brotha hope it tastes good and if not you still created something or at least attempted it which is more than i can say.. bravo haha -daniel

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  2. Brady the Chocolate Chunk Peanut Butter Cheesecake was incredible! Thank you for your enthusiasm and creativity. I know we've had this conversation before but the joy of baking is not baking for yourself but rather sharing it with others and seeing the joy it brings to someone else's life. Keep it up and remember..."COCONUT"!!! I will be your Guinea Pig!

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