{recipe} welcome to the good life

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake Squares

I didn't think there was anything better in the world than chocolate and peanut butter put together. Reese's peanut butter cups? My favorite childhood candy. Oreos with peanut butter slathered across? Another favorite. I have a major sweet tooth and this combination always satisfies. I am also a huge fan of cheesecake (who isn't?!), so when I saw this recipe on The Sweets Life I could NOT resist. No, really. I showed the pictures of these delectable bars to my roommates and a few of my friends and could not stop coming back to the page. Okay... maybe I shouldn't admit all of this.. :)

This recipe is extremely easy to make, and most of the ingredients you probably already have sitting around at home just waiting to be used! I am usually apprehensive about making cheesecake, but like I said, I couldn't resist the urge!

Ingredients:
Crust-
-7 whole graham crackers, broken into small pieces
-6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted & cooled
-3 tbsp brown sugar
-2 tbsp all-purpose flour
-1/8 tsp salt

Filling-
-2 packages fat-free cream cheese, softened
-2/3 cup granulated sugar
-2 eggs
-1/4 cup fat-free sour cream
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-1 normal-size bag mini Reese's peanut butter cups, chopped
-2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Start out by preheating the oven to 325F. Line an 8-in pan with aluminum foil, leaving a 3-4 inch overhang on each side. Grease foil. (I forgot to grease the foil and my bars came off of it without a problem.)

Make the graham cracker crust by adding crackers to food processor and pulsing until fine. Add butter, brown sugar, flour, and salt. Pulse until mixture is combined. Press into the bottom of the baking dish. (I do not own a food processor. I instead put the 7 graham crackers in a pint size ziplock bag and zipped it up tight. Then I crushed the graham crackers to as fine as possible and poured the crumbs into a bowl with the rest of the ingredients. I combined all of the ingredients with a large wooden spoon, then crushed graham cracker pieces I missed with a fork. My crust turned out just fine!)  

Bake crust for 12-15 minutes until browning. (I used a dark glass baking dish so it took my crust about 19 minutes to brown.) Cool for at least 30 minutes before putting cheesecake filling in.

In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Slowly add sugar, beating well. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Make sure they are fully incorporated in the mixture before adding anything else. Beat in sour cream and vanilla extract until fully combined. After chopping Reese's peanut butter cups, set aside approximately 1/2 cup to use as the topping. Carefully fold the remaining chopped candies into the cream cheese batter. 

Pour batter into baking pan, spreading evenly over crust. Bake at 325F for 35-40 minutes. Rotate halfway through. (I took my cheesecake out after about 30 minutes. It was starting to brown at the top and seemed to be cooked through.) It will be done when the edges are set and middle still jiggles slightly. 

Cool cheesecake for 2 hours at room temperature. Cover and refrigerate for 3 hours (up to 24) before adding the chocolate and garnishes.

Remove cheesecake from fridge and using the foil overhang, remove bars from pan. Cut into small squares. Melt bittersweet chocolate in microwave (stirring every 15 seconds). Drizzle chocolate over bars and top with remaining chopped Reese's peanut butter cups.

Enjoy!!!!

I'm just going to say that the flavors together are absolutely heavenly.

xox, Jen