- Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen,
we're making an amazing peanut butter cheesecake.
So let's get started.
First off, grab a nine-inch springform pan.
And we're gonna need some chocolate sandwich cookies,
also known as Oreos.
You want two sleeves minus two.
That's 30 cookies.
You have two choices here.
If you wanna process your cookies,
we're just gonna process them up.
But if you don't have a food processor
or you don't wanna lug it out,
grab your cookies.
You can pop 'em into a bag
or put them in between two pieces of paper
and smash 'em up.
Ooh.
Oh dear.
And that's gonna get messy.
I'll use the food processor today.
It would be fine if they were in a bag.
In you go.
We're gonna process these up
until they're nice and finely ground.
If you want some bigger chunks,
go ahead and just process it less.
That looks good.
Now, in a large bowl,
we're adding 70 grams, or five tablespoons,
of unsalted butter.
Microwave this on 50% power in 30-second bursts
until it's nice and melty.
Usually, I'm pouring the butter into the crumbs.
This should be fine, though.
I'm also adding in three tablespoons of sugar
just for a touch of sweetness.
Stir this together.
We're gonna have a nice crumbly crust,
but it'll set up in the fridge and harden.
Oreos mixed with butter.
Ah, nah, this smells so good.
All right, this is nice and crumbly.
You can see it looks like wet sand basically,
but not the sand you can make a sand castle out of.
Grab your nine-inch springform pan.
And I'm gonna dump these right in.
Give your pan a little shimmy to distribute the crumbs.
Grab a flat-bottomed glass or a measuring cup
and press the crumbs down.
You probably know the drill,
but I do wanna tell you to press, press, press.
(sighs) I wish people liked that song still.
It's so good.
Anyways, press it out towards the edge.
You're compacting the pieces so they hold together.
That's the magic of a cookie crust,
because we're only using just enough butter
to hold everything together.
I'd also love to see a little reveal of the cheesecake,
so don't push the crust all the way to the top.
Just halfway up your pan.
This looks beautiful.
And I wanna tell you,
we're gonna make our cheesecake in a bain-marie today,
which is a water bath.
It's so easy,
but you need one thing,
extra-wide foil.
I'm doubling my foil up.
You can reuse this by the way, so don't throw it away.
Place your pan in the middle of the foil.
I'm also gonna fold the edges over,
'cause I don't want it completely shielded from the oven.
I'm just making a happy, dry home
for my cheesecake to bake in.
You wanna do this before you put the filling in,
because the filling is gonna go towards the top,
and it'll start falling out and you'll be really unhappy.
Give your cheesecake a hug.
And this goes into the fridge for about half an hour.
While our crust is chilling and our oven's heating,
we're gonna make this delicious
creamy peanut butter filling.
I need four eight-ounce blocks of cream cheese.
That's 226 grams times four.
1/2 a cup of sour cream.
Adding sour cream just really improves
the texture of your cheesecake,
gives you a nice depth of flavor with that tang.
And it's just too dense if you're using all cream cheese.
We're gonna cream this up right now.
Just mix it on medium until it is thoroughly combined.
You don't want any lumps here.
And I will point out that my cream cheese
was on the warmer side of room temperature.
You can microwave it on low power for a few seconds
or pop it into a nice, warm, cozy place to warm up.
I'm gonna let this run on medium low
for about three minutes.
I really want to get that cream cheese
and sour cream well combined
before we go onto the next step.
And by the way, aside from being delicious and beautiful,
this peanut butter cheesecake is so good
for a make-ahead dessert.
You can make this,
and it lasts for up to five days in the fridge.
Or you can tightly wrap it,
and it stores for months in your freezer.
And if you want a magical, delicious bite of cheesecake,
just cut the cheesecake, wrap the individual pieces up,
and you can defrost them and enjoy, mm.
While that's mixing up,
I'm gonna fill my kettle up.
I want about eight cups of boiling water for my water bath.
So this can get started and just be heating on low
while we make our filling.
And yes, I need to polish this kettle really badly.
Don't judge me.
It's time for a scrape down.
And I want to tell you something about the speed
and the whole paddle situation.
When you're making a cheesecake,
the goal is for it to be creamy and amazing,
and one of the ways we do that is a lower temperature
and also having no air bubbles in the cheesecake
or as few air bubbles as possible.
If it's filled with air, it can change the texture,
it changes the way it bakes,
and it can crack because the air expand the oven.
So we're mixing this on medium low for a long time
instead of on high for a short time.
Let that continue mixing.
And while it does,
grab a scale or a measuring cup
because we're gonna get our peanut butter ready.
(timer ticks)
Now it's time to add one cup, or 260 grams,
of a creamy, amazing peanut butter.
Ooh.
I'm using a scale because I hate having the measuring cups
with peanut butter stuck inside of them.
It's not fun.
That's great.
I also want one cup of granulated sugar, 200 grams.
And 1/4 teaspoon of salt.
I'll point out that I'm not using a natural peanut butter.
This is a processed peanut butter,
so it has some emulsifying agents,
it has some sugar,
and it has some salt.
That makes it delicious and creamy.
If you wanna use a natural peanut butter,
the kind you have to stir together,
stir your little heart out.
I would add in maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of a teaspoon of salt
to have that nice salty balance.
And I would probably probably add in
maybe three more tablespoons of sugar.
Okay, we're gonna mix this up again on medium low
until it is nice and creamy.
And yes, you will be scraping the bowl down
because you want a homogenous,
beautiful mixture with no streaks.
This smells so good,
but there's a problem.
Peanut butter on the inside,
pure white on the outside.
Scrape that bowl down.
We want it all mixed together nicely.
I'm letting that mix on medium low,
and while it does,
I'm gonna crack my four eggs
and make sure there are no shells.
Room temperature, of course.
Usually, I add my eggs in one at a time,
waiting for the first to mix.
But today, just gonna give this a really light beat
to break the yolks up,
and we'll pour it in a little bit at a time.
There's nothing wrong with giving your batter a head start.
So add some of the eggs,
let it mix for a while,
add a little bit more.
The eggs here are adding
a little bit of richness, of course,
but also giving the cake structure so it holds together.
There's no flour in this,
so it's just gonna let everything set up
really nicely in the bake.
And you'll notice I have been on medium low the whole time.
I don't wanna whip air into this.
You are gonna thank me
when your cheesecake comes out perfectly flat
and beautifully creamy
Glossy and amazing.
(whimsical music)
Back to mixing.
Let that incorporate for just a few seconds,
and then we're gonna add in 2/3 of a cup,
or 160 mils, of heavy whipping cream.
This cake is gonna barely hold together after baking,
meaning it's gonna melt in your mouth.
It's not like a brick of cream cheese you're eating.
It's gonna be light and fluffy
with delicious peanut butter, chocolate vibes all over.
And I'm also adding in one teaspoon of vanilla.
A little bit goes a long way
in just making a beautiful, aromatic, delicious cheesecake.
That looks nice.
You can see I have this beautiful, thin batter.
Oh my gosh.
Grab this mixing bowl.
I'm gonna finish mixing this by hand
and just scrape the bowl down as it happens.
The annoying thing is,
because this isn't a pure white cheesecake,
you're gonna see the lumps of cream cheese when you cut it.
And it's also gonna have a different mouth feel.
So mix, mix, mix.
Oh, and as you can see, my kettle is ready.
Take that off heat, grab that crust out.
You can see it's nice and chilled.
And honestly, if it's been 20 minutes
that's gonna be fine too.
I say half an hour, but 20 minutes will work too.
Pour that luscious peanut butter filling
right into your chilled crust.
Oh my gosh, this looks so good.
Make sure you get every last drop out.
That texture is so beautiful, I could almost cry.
Might shed a tear.
This gets a little shimmy,
but first, I'm placing it into a roasting dish.
Now,
shimmy, shimmy, shimmy.
You do wanna level the top, so just grab a little spatula
and smooth that out so there's no ridges around.
Those could burn.
And also, we'll be topping this
with more deliciousness later,
and you want a nice base.
Ooh, that's hot.
Now we're gonna pour in one inch of boiling water
right in there.
But it's better if you do this when it's in the oven,
so let's get this in the oven and then pour.
Less chance of burning.
Always a good thing.
Now carefully pour in one inch of that boiling hot water.
This will give it a beautiful steam bath
so it doesn't brown up too much.
And it's also going to let it bake really evenly.
Your cheesecake's done
when the center gently jiggles like Jell-O
when shaken softly.
That was take 20 of that.
All right, it's gonna need about an hour and 15 in my oven,
but you might need 15 minutes less, 15 minute more.
Just check it occasionally.
After it bakes,
crack the oven open and let it just hang out
with the oven off in that warm space for about an hour
before you take it out to let it cool.
And it's gonna chill for about four hours to overnight.
It really needs that time to set.
We'll be back.
Towards the end of your chill time,
we're gonna make a really easy and delicious ganache
to top this cheesecake off.
I want three ounces of semi-sweet chocolate.
You do not have to use chopped chocolate.
You could use chocolate chips,
but they're more difficult to melt.
You could use bittersweet
if you want that extra chocolatey less sweet flavor.
Break these up,
and we're gonna give these a nice fine chop.
Ganache is really simple,
but it can go wrong if you burn the chocolate,
and that happens because you're just trying
to melt a stubborn piece or two.
And the way to solve that problem
is to finely chop everything
so they're all small pieces floating in the cream.
My chocolate's all chopped.
And right now,
I'm gonna add 1/3 of a cup of heavy cream
right into a microwave-safe bowl.
You could make this on a double boiler,
but it's really easy in a microwave.
We're gonna scald the cream,
meaning heat on high until it just starts bubbling,
and then take it out.
Depends on your microwave
and the dish you're microwaving it in,
so keep an eye on it.
My cream is steamy,
so I'm gonna add the chocolate right in there.
And if it's not hot enough,
or you do have some stubborn lumps,
you can microwave this on half power.
Give it just a little bit of a stir
so that everything's sitting in the cream.
And let it stand for a minute.
You can also cover this up
just to preserve some of the heat.
Then, we'll stir it up.
And that wasn't a good cover.
Found a better cover.
Perfect.
One minute later, let's take a look
and see how melty this is.
We're just gonna stir this together.
It's not gonna look great until it looks perfect.
So it looks like all the chocolate's nice and melty.
Chocolate melts at a really low temperature,
so the secret is to not overheat it.
You really wanna let it just sit out,
hang out and absorb the heat from the cream,
and then give it a stir.
Look at this.
Ah, that's a nice beautiful, silky ganache.
If you do have any stubborn lumps of chocolate,
you have two options.
Go with it because no one's really gonna notice
and it's all gonna solidify anyways.
Or half power for maybe 20-second bursts
just to warm things up.
Do not overheat your chocolate.
This is ready to pour on top now.
This looks a little crazy,
but there's a few things I wanna show you.
When I took my cheesecake out of the fridge,
I noticed it had like gotten some beading on top.
That just happens.
It's okay.
I laid a paper towel flat over the top
and just let it sit there.
It absorbed a tiny bit of moisture.
It's not a big deal,
but I don't want a barrier
between the cheesecake and my chocolate,
'cause then the chocolate could just slide off.
I want it to stick.
All right, so now take our protective foil layer off.
It did its job,
'cause you can tell my cheesecake baked up nice and flat.
No cracks.
Run a knife along the edge of your cheesecake.
So it's gonna stick to the collar,
and your cheesecake could crack if you just opened it up.
Okay, our cheesecake is out.
I'm gonna use an offset spatula.
You could grab a big knife if you want.
And we're just going to slide it down.
It tends to be just a little bit stuck.
And instead of tearing anything,
if you run a knife along the bottom,
it should work out just fine.
Slide it off.
Yeah.
That was the tricky part.
Now we're just gonna pour the chocolate ganache
all over the top.
Get all that chocolate out.
No need to waste anything.
This looks so decadent and rich.
I just need to spread it out.
And I'm using an offset spatula,
but you could use anything you want.
This looks delicious,
but I think it would look even better
with a smattering of little chocolate peanut butter cups,
Reese's Pieces, on the side.
I'm just gonna give them a really quick chop
to break them up.
I just really wanna see the peanut butter
all throughout on top and give it some height and texture.
The key is just to scatter these on top.
Don't try and make anything look perfect.
It's just a smattering of broken peanut butter cups.
You can slice and enjoy your cake right away
or let the chocolate set up in the fridge
for a perfect slice.
So decadent and delicious.
It is so light and creamy
with peanut butter and chocolate throughout,
but it just melts and dissolves on your tongue.
This cake is basically magic.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.
And if you liked this video,
check out my cheesecake playlist.