I made this cake specially for my friend Dana on her birthday.

It’s always fun making stuff for Dana because she is so easy to please! She made me feel like a million bucks when she asked me over and over “Did you buy this? No. Seriously, did you buy this?”

Why would I ever want to buy a peanut butter cheesecake when it is so much more fun to make it from scratch?

So I did. Now this cake was intense, 10 inches of oreo-peanut butter cup-cheesecake goodness.

This cake was actually…dare I say…quite dangerous.

The danger started with a stick of butter, a cup of roasted peanuts, and a package of oreos all blended together for the crust…

Then I added a layer of cheesecake filling…then a layer of chopped peanut butter cups…

Then some more peanut butter cheesecake filling.

I baked the cheesecake in a bain marie (water bath) to avoid cracking — success! I’ll make sure to remember to do that next time I make that Oreo Cheesecake.

The crucial step with this cheesecake was to allow it to set in the refrigerator – I set mine for about 24 hours.

When I initially tried to remove the spring-form pan from the cheesecake, which I attempted before setting the cake, the crust began tearing away from the cheese filling. The crust was also quite mushy and not so crust-like at all, despite me baking it for 1.5 hours!

Once I was able to successfully remove the cake from the pan, I added some decorations. Chopped peanut butter cups and drizzled milk chocolate — what could be better?

Nothing, according to Dana.

Thanks Dana, so happy you enjoyed it 🙂

I adapted a recipe I found here.

Warning: if you plan to prepare this cheesecake, do it well in advance of serving — and prepare for a dangerous ending to your meal.

My definition of dangerous: ingredients or flavours that are so intense and rich that they may be harmful to eat.

Yours edibly,

Elana

I made this cake special for the birthday girl Lynn. Lynn claimed to be allergic to oreos for quite some time in her youth — yet it was always obvious that her ‘allergy’ was non-existent and that she in fact LOVED oreos and ate them regularly.

So oreo cheesecake it was — plus I wanted to try making something new and making cheesecake seemed like it would be a fun challenge.

The toughest part to make was the crust…of course.

Making the crust even and smooth took me…I’m slightly embarrassed to say… an hour or so, I just couldn’t tear myself away.

The filling was easy peezy, mainly composed of cream cheese and sour cream among a few other items.

I arranged some extra oreos in the filling and it was ready to bake.

All was going smoothly until I removed the cake from the oven and noticed this…

What a crack! And I’m not talking about the good craic that you can find in Dublin…this was a nightmare.

But I went from being the saddest person in the kitchen to the happiest pretty fast once I learned that it is easy to repair a crack in a cheesecake.

All I needed was a palette knife and some hot water and I was able to smooth over the crack — no problem and then I could decorate.

I managed to snap a shot of the center of the cheesecake before it was quickly devoured.

Not bad, not bad, I’d say.

You can find the apparent Cheesecake Factory recipe here.

Please try this at home, it was pretty easy to make and the crowd will love it!

Oh and make sure to let me know how it goes if you do find the time to bake it.

Yours edibly,

Elana