Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheesecake

Living in New York gave me a bit of a complex about cheesecakes. The city’s namesake style cheesecake occupied a slice-shaped space in my heart, that I believed, until very recently, could never be replaced. However, I decided to take my traditional NY cheesecake recipe and jazz it up with a chocolate crust and peanut butter flavor. The result was out of this world. Though the classic is still drool-worthy, my version has light but peanut-buttery filling and dark chocolate glaze that will have your friends and family begging for more. The crunchy crust is given a rich sweetness by using brown sugar instead of the traditional granulated and the addition of crème fraîche to the batter makes the filling cloud-like! Bake one today using your Farmer Owned ingredients and you just might have a hard time going back to the original.

Ingredients:
For the Crust:
18 ounces of chocolate wafer cookies, pulverized
2 sticks of butter, melted
1/2 cup of brown sugar

For the Filling:
2 – 8 oz packages of cream cheese, room temperature
340 grams of peanut butter
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of crème fraîche, room temperature
3 eggs
1 tablespoon of vanilla

For the Ganache:
4.5 oz of dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup of heavy cream

Directions:

First make the crust by combining the cookie crumbs, butter, and brown sugar in a large bowl, and stirring until the mixture comes together and is a damp sand consistency. Press the crust into a lightly greased 9 inch springform pan. Wrap the bottom and the sides of the springform pan with aluminum. Set the crust in the fridge to chill while you make the filling.

To make the filling, beat the cream cheese, peanut butter, and granulated sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer on low speed.

Add the crème fraîche and mix to combine.

Add the eggs one at a time, stirring well after each addition. Finish with the vanilla.

Remove the prepared crust from the fridge and fill with cheesecake filling.

Place the cheesecake into a large roasting pan and then add 2 inches of hot water to the roasting pan to create a water-bath.

Place the cheesecake into a 325° F oven and bake for 75 – 80 minutes until mostly set with just a little wiggle in the center.

When cooked, remove cheesecake from water-bath and tin foil but leave in springform pan. Let cool completely, about 3-4 hours, before carefully removing from pan.

Just before you are ready to serve, make the ganache. Place chopped chocolate in a medium bowl. Heat the heavy cream in a small sauce pan until it just reaches a boil. Pour the hot heavy cream over the chopped chocolate and let sit for 1 minute.

Stir the chocolate and cream together until the chocolate is fully melted and the glaze is shiny and smooth. Pour the glaze over the cheesecake and spread out to the edges with a spatula.