This cheesecake was a major hit at Thanksgiving this year! I adapted this recipe from the Barefeet in the Kitchen blog. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
- 24 chocolate sandwich cookies (about 1 cup finely crushed, gluten free cookies work fine)
- 5 tablespoons butter melted
- 3/4 cup caramel sauce (I did not measure this, and just used a drizzle-y caramel sauce from the store)
- 3 8-ounce packages of cream cheese
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 3 eggs
- 1/4 cup dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate chips melted
- 1/4 cup chopped pecans toasted if desired
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees (this can wait until you put the crust in the refrigerator, unless your oven needs more than 15 minutes to pre-heat).
- Crush the oreo cookies - I love using a food processor to do this! You can also put it in a large freezer-weight ziploc bag and crush them with a rolling pin or something else hard enough).
- Combine the crumbs with the melted butter and press the mixture into the bottom of an 8-10" springform pan. Pour 1/2 cup of the caramel sauce over this crust and spread it out lightly with a spatula. Refrigerate the caramel coated crust for 10 minutes.
- Beat the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing on low speed just until each one is blended.
- Pour this mixture over the refrigerated crust. Place the spring-form pan on a large baking sheet prior to placing it in the oven. (If you line the baking sheet with foil first, clean up will be a breeze.) Some of the caramel in the crust will drip through the pan onto your oven if you forget the baking sheet - this is very important.
- Bake 65 - 70 minutes, until the center is almost set. Run a knife around the edges of the pan while it is still warm. Let cool at room temperature and then refrigerate 4 hours or overnight before removing the sides of the pan.
- Once the sides of the pan have been removed, sprinkle the pecans across the top of the cheesecake and then drizzle with the remaining caramel and the melted chocolate. Store remaining cheesecake in the refrigerator.