I recently lost my phone. GASP! I was running for the bus with my girls and husband and somewhere down the road I dropped it. The timing couldn’t have been worse, it was a Sunday, I had colleagues to meet, a flight to catch the next day and all this without a phone seemed like Mission Impossible. I was without a phone for 3 days while I was traveling and I have to say it was the most peaceful time I have spent and after a long time I spent more time speaking to people and bonding with my colleagues then hiding behind a phone. It can be so liberating. The rubbish bit of the deal was ALL my best photos of my baking experiments were on the phone so I lost everything. I don’t understand for the life of me why it wasn’t backed up. There was an important lesson in that 🙁 So for some things I have absolutely nothing to show and I need to bake those all over again or just try something new, and for some things I just have a picture of the final piece, which means my usual step by step instructions will be missing so you must excuse me for that. Today’s entry will be one of those incomplete entries which I hope to correct at a later stage when I bake the same cake again. Cheesecakes are always made again:)
Cheesecakes can be so simple and yet bring so many varieties with them. It all started off with just a simple New York Cheesecake and the next obvious creation had to be an Oreo Cheesecake. I’ve always only ever stuck to making a New York Cheesecake. Cheesecake is risky business to begin with, and if I start experimenting and failing that’ll be too much trauma for me to deal with.
But Oreo Cheesecake seemed easy peasy. The most basic Oreo Cheesecake I’ve had is a simple cheesecake filling with an Oreo base. Creativity is really what The Cheesecake Factory churns out. I like to go there for inspiration and indulgence and that’s how my Oreo Cheesecake was created. I LOVE the fact that the Cheesecake Factory has an Oreo piece in NEARLY every bite. It really defines the cake as an Oreo Cheesecake to me.
My husband hasn’t been making any requests for a while now, but he was really looking forward to this cake, which added some pressure on me. It turned out great, which was a relief and now has given me courage to try out more in the Cheesecake range.
I’ve been conscious of how sweet this cake can be, so here’s how I’ve cut down on the sweetness. For the biscuit base I remove ALL the cream from the Oreos and use the chocolate sandwich pieces only. I’ve kept the sugar of the filling on the low side as well, because I’ll add the Oreo pieces with the cream into the filling – this will increase the sweetness level. If you prefer your cake on the sweeter side you can just adjust the sugar level by an extra 1/4 cup.
Ingredients:
Base
26 Oreo Cookies, with the cream removed, and crushed finely
4 tbsp butter, if you need to add more to make the base dense and more buttery, add in 1 tbsp more at a time
Filling
3 x 250 g packet Philadelphia Cream Cheese
3 eggs
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
10 Oreos, chopped coarsely
Topping
6 Oreos, cream removed and crushed
4 Oreos sliced into half
Whipped Cream
Directions
- Preheat oven to 180 C or 350 F
- Mix the ingredients for the base together and press into a 9″ spring foam pan. The base should come up to the sides of the pan, if you want it all the way up use additional 10 biscuits. Bake for 10 minutes and then let it cool
- Beat Cream Cheese and sugar, add sour cream, vanilla and finally eggs one at a time. Once you have added the eggs, after each addition beat slowly until incorporated
- Finally stir the chopped Oreos into the batter and pour over baked crust
- Bake for 30-40 mins, or until center is wobbly but firm on the sides. If your oven is very hot and the Cheesecake starts to cook from the sides and not from the center, cover the cake with a foil to stop it from browning on the top
- Let the cake cool at room temperature and then shift to cool in the fridge. Refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours and then loosen the cake and remove from the pan
- To decorate, pipe whipped cream around the edges, sprinkle crushed Oreos in the center and place the sliced Oreos all around the cake
