White chocolate peppermint mocha cheesecake

So this is a couple of days late but I made this cheesecake for Christmas dinner the other night and documented the whole thing so I could have it be the first recipe I share on this blog! I have to say the cheesecake was one of the best I have ever had and I am so very proud of it since I made up the recipe myself! So here it is!

First I used a basic cheesecake recipe, if you have a favourite plain cheesecake that you like to make go for it, if not then this one is simple and works perfectly! 

First you have to make the crust, I chose to make an Oreo crumb crust for this particular cake. 

So first preheat your oven to 350F. In a small bowl pour 1 1/4 cups Oreo crumbs

In a small bowl melt 1/4 cup of butter and add it to the crumbs.

Mix them together and then pour the crumbs into a spring form pan, (I cut a piece of parchment paper to put on the bottom so that when I cut it later it was a lot smoother, but it's not necessary to do this step) 

Flatten the crumbs down and try and make sure there are no holes and that everything is even. Then since this is a white chocolate cheesecake I decided to melt 1/4 cup of white chocolate chips and spread them on top of the crumbs, just put them in a microwaveable bowl and heat them for 20 seconds, stir and pour over the crumbs.

It doesn't look so pretty but don't worry you'll never see it like this again and it just adds that extra little bit of chocolately goodness. I usually put the crust in the oven for about 5 minutes just to make sure that it is set nicely before I have to pour on the cheesecake. Once that is done set the pan aside and start on the cheesecake. I used my kitchenaid mixer for this but you can use a hand mixer as well. Open 3 bricks of cream cheese and put them in the bowl with 3/4 cup of sugar and mix.

Mix these until combined. Then add in the three eggs one at a time and mix. 

Once everything is combined it should start to become creamy. 

Then add in 1 tsp of vanilla and mix. Next in a small dish take 2 tbsp of instant coffee and add 1 tbsp of warm water.

Stir to dissolve the coffee and then add it to the mixer and mix it till combined.

Then in a small ziploc bag put unwrapped candy canes. (this step doesn't really have an exact amount, I did about 25 mini candy canes but you can do more or less depending on how minty you want your cake to be)

Once you're satisfied with the amount of candy canes seal the bag and start smashing! Generally it is better to have the candy canes pretty finely broken up because then you are less likely to have hard pieces in the middle of the cake. 

Once they have been successfully smashed you can add them to the batter. 

Mix them in using a spatula and then pour the mix on top of the crust you made earlier. 

Once poured in smooth out the top and make sure that it's evenly spread. You don't want to end up with an uneven cake! 

Then put the cake in the oven for 45-55 minutes. All ovens are different so I don't want to put an exact time on it. Mine stayed in for 55 minutes. 

Once it's done remove it from the oven and let cool on the counter. Once cooled cover it and put it in the fridge for a couple of hours before you decorate it. (Excuse the huge dent in mine, that's what you get when you have a baby on your hip and you think you can pull a cake out of the oven with one hand!)

Once your cake has set in the fridge pull it out and get to decorating! I decided to do a white chocolate glaze on top of this one so I heated up 1/4 cup of white chocolate chips, 1 tbsp whipping cream and 1/2 tbsp butter in the microwave for about 30 seconds. I then stirred it all together and poured it on top of the cheesecake. (Sorry I don't have photos of these steps, I realized I hadn't decorated my cake at 3:00pm on Christmas Day when we were getting ready to go to my moms for dinner so I was rushing and unable to take pictures!) after pouring the chocolate glaze on I put the cheesecake in the fridge for a couple minutes to set while I whipped up the whipping cream! For the whipping cream I used 1 cup of whipping cream and 1/4 cup of icing sugar. I placed them in a bowl and used a kitchenaid hand blender to mix it up. I then spooned the whipping cream into a piping bag with a fancy tip and pipped it around the edge of the cake. Then I crushed up four more small candy cakes to sprinkle on top of the cake. These candy canes we not as fine as the ones inside, I wanted more chunks because I think it looks prettier. And then I was done! I brought the cake over to my moms and put it in the fridge to let the chocolate glaze and whipping cream set before we ate so it got probably two more hours of fridge time before we ate it! (And you can't even tell that I dug my finger into the cake! A little decoration goes a long way!!)

This was the best cheesecake ever! There were even some seconds had and if my husband hadn't dropped it on the street on the way out of my moms house that night I would probably be having a piece right now, but oh well I guess I'll just have to make it again! I hope everyone enjoys it!! Here's the full recipe! 

White chocolate peppermint mocha cheesecake

Preheat oven to 350F

Crust:

1 1/4 cups Oreo cookie crumbs

1/4 cup butter, melted

1/4 cup white chocolate chips, melted

Mix the Oreo crumbs and butter in a bowl. Flatten on a the bottom of a spring form pan, drizzle with melted white chocolate. Place in oven for 5 minutes, remove and set aside.

Cheesecake:

3 250g cream cheese bricks 

3/4 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp instant coffee

1 tbsp warm water

10-15 mini crushed candy canes 

In the bowl of your stand mixer place cream cheese and sugar. Mix until combined, then add eggs, one at a time and mix until incorporated. Add in vanilla. In a separate dish mix instant coffee and warm water. Once coffee is dissolved add to cream cheese mixture and mix until creamy. Finely crush candy canes in a ziploc bag and add them to cream cheese mixture. Mix in candy canes with a spatula. 

Pour the mixture over the crust from earlier and smooth out the top. 

Bake for 45-55 minutes depending on your oven.

Remove from oven and let cool to room temperature on the counter. Once cooled cover and put in the fridge for 3-4 hours or over night. 

Topping:

Chocolate glaze 

1/4 cup white chocolate chips

1 tbsp whipping cream

1/2 tbsp butter

Melt all three ingredients in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Stir and pour over cheesecake. Put in fridge for ten minutes to set.

Whipping cream 

1 cup whipping cream

1/4 cup icing sugar

Mix icing sugar and whipping cream together in a bowl with a hand blender, once stiff spoon into pipping bag with large tip attached. Pipe whipping cream around cheesecakes edge and anywhere else you feel like. 

Smash up 4-5 small candy canes and sprinkle them on top of the cake.

Cut and enjoy!