- 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.
