Choose Your Own Cheesecake

The only way you can go wrong with this one is if you're health-conscious.  Pam and I discussed our options via cell phone while I was grocery shopping and she gave me many, many varieties of cheesecake to choose from.  We decided to go for the ultimate chocolate mint cheesecake with Oreo crust.  When we baked the crust, butter ran out of the springform pan and dripped into my oven.  I actually reduced the butter in the recipe below.  We licked the spoons and the bowls as we cooked.  We didn't even wait for the cheesecake to cool completely before digging in.  

  

Cheesecake

Crust:

30 Oreos or wafer cookies or graham crackers

3/4 stick of butter, melted

Filling:

24 oz. cream cheese

1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

3/4 c. sugar

3 eggs

2 Tbsp. milk or cream or mantequilla (if you're Honduran)

10 oz. chocolate chips or peanut butter chips or mint chocolates or butterscotch chips or fruit preserves

** Squish your choice of cookies into bits.  Or put them in the blender and pulse until coarse crumbs form.

Pour into a bowl and add in the melted butter.  Pat mixture into the bottom of a springform pan, squishing it up the sides a bit.  Stick the crust in the oven while the oven preheats to 350 degrees.  Then take it out.

** Combine the filling in a bowl and beat with a handmixer.  If you're using a variety of "chip" melt it in the microwave before you add it in.  If you're using fruit preserves don't put them in yet.

** When the filling is mixed pour it into the springform on top of the crust.  Stick the pan in the oven and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour.  When the cheesecake is done the outside will have set but the middle may be a bit jiggly.  If you are using fruit preserves spread them over the top now.

**  Wait for the cake to cool.  Refridgerate before eating.

Make mint chocolate cheesecake

if that will please you.

If you like strawberries

make that one, too!

Make one with blueberries.

Make one with white chocolate.

Make one with caramel.

Then make some more-

make one with peanut butter

one with Nilla wafers.

Make so many cheesecakes

they explode out your door.

Your neighbors won't hate you

if the street's full of cheesecake

they'll hug you and kiss you and make you cook more

they'll choose their own cheesecake

and you'll keep cooking cheesecake

til cheesecake reigns

and takes over the world.