Homemade Chocolate Peppermint Cheesecake

This creamy York Peppermint Patty cheesecake has an Oreo cookie crust and chocolate ganache topping. The texture is smooth and velvety without being too dense, and it has a delicious creamy peppermint flavor that’s perfect for the holidays.

Last year, I created {cough, cough} a peppermint hot chocolate recipe using Peppermint Mocha creamer, and Grace and I have been looking forward to this year’s Peppermint Mocha season with glee.

A few weeks ago, I realized that creamer can be used in place of cream in recipes, and this was a revelation of epic proportions. The girls and I immediately drove to our local Walmart and purchased two large bottles of creamer, in York Peppermint Patty and Peppermint Mocha flavors. (I wanted to try Pumpkin Spice but I let Grace overrule me. She doesn’t like anything pumpkin this year.)

At home, we had a taste test to determine which flavor would work best in our cheesecake. York Peppermint Patty won out, and we saved Peppermint Mocha for hot chocolate and other fineries.

We served our York Peppermint Patty chocolate peppermint cheesecake with Thanksgiving dinner.

As usual, my cheesecake cracked. As usual, I covered the giant cracks in my cheesecake with chocolate ganache. As usual, my cheesecake was amazing. It was so amazing that I may have licked the springform pan, and no one noticed or complained that it had cracked.

Of course they didn’t. They were too busy eating it.

How to make a York Peppermint Patty Cheesecake

For the cheesecake

1. Preheat the oven to 350º F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.
2. Combine the crushed Oreo cookies and melted butter until it forms a thick paste. Press into the bottom and slightly up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan. Set crust aside.
   
3. Soften the cream cheese by placing one block at a time in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Do another 15 seconds if it’s not soft enough after the first go ’round. 
4. Combine the softened cream cheese and sugar with an electric mixer (or in a stand mixer) and cream together until smooth.
   
5. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg.
   
6. Add 1 cup creamer, peppermint extract, vanilla, and candy bits. Mix until smooth and creamy. Do not over mix.
   
7. Pour the batter into the prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface.
   
8. If your cheesecake pan is not airtight (or if you’re not sure), cover the bottom securely with foil before adding to the water bath. Place your springform pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until it is halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. This is a very important and necessary step; don’t skip it!
9. Bake at 350º for 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost set. This can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one additional hour, remove the cheesecake from the oven and lift it carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter.
   

For the optional chocolate ganache

1. While the cake is cooling on the counter, prepare the chocolate ganache. In order to do this, heat chocolate chips, butter (cut into small cubes), and 1/2 cup creamer in a pan in the microwave in 30 second increments. Continue to heat for 30 seconds at a time, then stir well, then heat for 30 seconds and stir well. Do that two or three times, until the chocolate is very smooth and creamy. The chocolate may become too runny to spread on your cheesecake, so you may have to let it sit on the counter for a while, until it cools and thickens enough to spread.
   
2. Once the cheesecake and the chocolate ganache are sufficiently cool, pour the ganache over the top of the cheesecake. Put the whole thing in the fridge to chill over night. Once fully chilled, the cheesecake is ready to serve.

© 2020, Tara Ziegmont. All rights reserved.