Submitted by Marcia Van Camp
Inspired by: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/180603/easy-philly-oreo-cheesecake/
Ingredients:
24 Oreo Cookies
3 Tbl butter melted (I used unsalted)
3 (250g) packages of cream cheese softened (I use Philly)
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
Special Instructions:
1. I lined the bottom of the pan with parchment paper to avoid sticking. If you don't know how to do this, there are a lot of great videos online.
2. My cheesecake had large cracks in it when it came out of the oven, and I look up ways to fix it. The best method was getting a spatula a little wet and smoothing over the cracks. This could have been easily covered up with some decorations but I still would like to avoid it in the future. I have seen a few things online about giving the cake a "water bath" basically cooking it with water surrounding it, so I may try that next time and see if it makes a difference.
Instructions
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Crush 16 cookies which will become the crust. The original directions say to do this in a bag but I found it very messy because a lot of the cookies stuck to the inside of the bag. I had better luck with putting the cookies in a bowl and crushing them with a drinking glass. The method doesn't really matter, as long as they get crushed!
2. Place crushed cookies in bowl. Add butter; mix well (a small spoon works fine). Press firmly onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan.
3. Beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition. Chop or crush remaining 8 cookies. Stir the cookies into the batter. (I was supposed to keep some out for decorating the top, but I just put them all in the batter)
4. Bake 45 min. or until center is almost set. Cool and refrigerate 3 hours or overnight. After eating more than you probably should...Store leftover cheesecake in refrigerator.
Notes: It would also be fun to make mini cheesecakes with this recipe in cupcake pans but I think you would need more crushed Oreos for the crusts. On the other hand, you could just buy the Oreo thins and split them up and use those without crushing anything. I think I would drizzle some chocolate sauce over this next time or put some whole Oreos or even a few strawberries in the middle for decoration.
