Peanut Butter Cheesecake

Thick, rich, and extra creamy this peanut butter cheesecake is a fantastic dessert. Step-by-step photos and helpful hints help you make this gorgeous cheesecake recipe. Perfect for a birthday party or Sunday night dinner, this recipe can be made a day or two ahead of time!

If you've spent some time on my blog you are well aware of my love affair with cheesecake recipes. I also adore peanut butter and chocolate together, I consider myself to be a true aficionado, there are good chocolate peanut butter cups and bad ones if you know YOU KNOW!

So it was only a matter of time until I made a recipe for peanut butter cheesecake. For pure peanut butter lovers you can leave off the chocolate ganache, but in my world, they belong together!

Next time, try my Basque Cheesecake recipe!

Let's get to the recipe.

Ingredients

Cheesecake doesn't require too many ingredients and luckily they are all pretty basic.

For the Oreo crust, you only need Oreo Cookies and butter. It's the best crust ever. You could make a graham cracker crust if you wanted.

The cheesecake batter requires a few more:

• Full Fat Cream Cheese. Completely softened to room temperature
• Peanut Butter. Creamy, I use Jif or Skippy peanut butter.
• Sugar. Granulated/ Caster Sugar
• Heavy Cream. , at room temperature 
• Sour Cream. at room temperature 
• Pure Vanilla Extract.
• Eggs. 3 Large Eggs, at room temperature  1 Large Egg Yolk, at room temperature 

You could stop there and the cheesecake would be delicious, but for me, a cheesecake always needs some sort of topping. Whipped cream would be fine on its own but peanut butter goes so well with chocolate I added a layer of chocolate ganache. Callebaut Chocolate Callets, or Finely Chopped Chocolate work, in a pinch you can use chocolate chips.

And don't forget Whipped Cream and a sprinkle of roasted peanuts. You could also add chopped Reese's peanut butter cups too!

How do you make a peanut butter cheesecake?

First things first preheat your oven to 350F/180C.

Then crush the Oreos, you can do this in a food processor, pulse until fine crumbs, or place the cookies in a plastic bag and use a rolling pin to beat the cookies to a fine crumb.

In a small bowl combine crushed Oreo crumbs and melted butter. Stir until a wet sand texture is formed.

Press into the bottom and slightly up upsides of prepared pan.

Bake for 5-8 minutes to set the crust. Let cool on a wire rack and continue preparing the cheesecake batter.

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or large bowl with a hand-held electric mixer beat the cream cheese for 3 minutes on medium speed.

It should be smooth with no lumps, make sure to scrape down the sides. Add the granulated sugar and beat for another 2 minutes on low speed.

Add the peanut butter, heavy cream, sour cream, and vanilla extract- mixing until fully combined. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl to ensure everything is evenly combined.

Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

You should have a creamy batter with no lumps.

Pour into the prepared pan. Place 9-inch springform pan in a 10-inch cake pan- place cake pan in a large roasting pan and fill roasting pan with hot water halfway up the sides of the cake pan. This prevents ANY water from getting in the cheesecake and you don't have to wrap everything with aluminum foil.

Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes to 1 hour and 20 minutes, the middle 2 inches of the cheesecake should jiggle just a little bit. I like to use an instant-read thermometer to check the internal temperature is 140-145F. Since we are covering the cheesecake in ganache it doesn't matter if you make a small hole.

Turn the oven off and let the cheesecake rest for 30 minutes then open the door so it is cracked open, let the cheesecake cool in the oven for another 30 minutes then take out of roasting pan and cool on a wire rack for another hour. Then wrap cheesecake with plastic wrap. Let chill in the fridge overnight or at least 6 hours.

In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat warm the heavy cream. In a bowl add the chocolate, after the cream is warmed pour on top of the chocolate.

Let sit for 5 minutes then add butter. Whisk everything together until evenly combined and glossy. Set aside in the fridge for 20 minutes.

Take the cheesecake out of the fridge and use an angled spatula to gently release the crust from the sides of the springform pan, then release the pan and use the spatula to gently release the crust from the bottom of the pan, if you wanted to serve it on a different plate. 

Pour chocolate ganache on top and push it down the side to drip and pipe whipped cream around the edge, sprinkle crushed peanuts on top. Let chill for at least 30 minutes before serving. Use a hot clean knife cut slices of cheesecake and clean the knife in between each slice. Store leftovers in the fridge for up to 5 days.

There you have it my version of a peanut butter cheesecake.

Tips for the best cheesecake

• Make sure your cream cheese is completely softened to room temperature. If you are in a rush, place the cream cheese blocks (still wrapped) in a bowl of warm water for 20 minutes-ish. Or cut the cream cheese blocks into small pieces.
• When mixing the cream cheese batter only mix on low-medium speed. Mixing on high will add more air to the batter which can create air bubbles which lead to cracking.
• Bake the cheesecake in a water bath. The steam from the water helps create a more even heat to bake the cheesecake. You can do this by wrapping the springform pan in foil or place the pan in a larger cake pan.
• Let the cheesecake cool slowly. If the cheesecake moves to different temperatures too quickly it will crack. That's why it is important to let it cool in the oven and then on the counter before placing it in the fridge to chill.
• Use a clean knife for each slice for pretty slices. Cheesecake will stick to the sides of the knife so you can get pretty ugly slices after a couple. To make sure you have clean slices use a hot towel to wipe the knife after each slice.

Other peanut butter recipes

• Peanut Butter Rice Krispies
• Reese's Peanut Butter Cookies
• Peanut Butter Brownies
• Peanut Butter Cake Recipe
• Peanut Butter Balls
• Peanut Butter M&M Cookies

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