Oreo Cheesecake

Everybody loves Oreos, well actually I had a friend that used to call them black crackers - but the point is, they are a simple and delicious snack. Two biscuits sandwiched together by a vanilla flavoured filling. I remember when I was in secondary school I'd have like a pack a day. Bearing in mind I was sharing them, I wasn't some girl alone in the corner munching on some black crackers. Then at some point when I was on a cheesecake high from GCSE food tech, I jazzed up a plain vanilla cheesecake with an Oreo topping. From there I developed it to add Oreos in the cheesecake filling and then graduated by using them as a biscuit base too. Think of it as a giant Oreo: chocolate biscuit base, creamy vanilla flavoured filling (with additional chunky Oreo pieces) and a chocolate biscuit top. Depending on my mood, I will either crush the biscuits for the top very finely and cover every bit of white, or I will do a rough crush and scatter them on top. The latter being what I do most of the time. And if you hadn't guessed, the base of this cheesecake is still from Nigella Lawson's recipe for 'Cherry Cheesecake' in her book Nigella Express. I've doubled the measurements because like in my secondary school days with a packet a day, you would do the same with a mini cheesecake.

The first thing to do was to prepare my tin. It is a 9 inch spring-form tin. Meaning a tin where you can remove the outer sides from the bottom of the tin, perfect for desserts like this because you can remove the outer tin with a click and the cake will still be attached to the bottom part on the table. I made sure to line the bottom of it with parchment paper so that slicing and dishing the cheesecake wouldn't become a hassle. With that done, I started crushing the two packets of biscuits needed for the base using a rolling pin. On the hob, I had the butter melting on a low heat. So when I had the biscuits crushed to the best of my ability I poured in the melted butter and mixed them together. Then into my prepared tin this went where I flattened it down with the back of a tablespoon for it to be set in the fridge. 

Moving on to the filling, I got one packet of Oreos, then using my rolling pin again I roughly crushed them so that they were mostly intact.

The cream cheese, which I'd left out to be at room temperature along with the double cream, went into a bowl with icing sugar and vanilla extract so that it could be whisked together with an electric hand whisk until it was smooth.

In a separate bowl I lightly whisked the double cream until it formed peaks.

In went the double cream into the cream cheese mixture where they were folded together and in went the crushed Oreos into that mixture to be folded in too.

In the filling went into the tin that was sitting in the fridge setting the base. I made sure to smooth the top and clean the edges of the tin, covered it with foil and left it in the fridge to set overnight.

When ready to serve, I used half of the remaining packet of Oreos which is 7 Oreos and crushed them with my trusty rolling pin. Finally, I scattered these crumbs on top of the cheesecake and it was finished. Easy peasy. The rich creamy filling will have others think you were in the kitchen for ages, when the truth is, most of the ingredients came out of packets and the fridge had to set it - not a gelatin sachet in sight! Try this recipe out, take a break from the usual Oreos dunked in milk, this is far better.

Serves 8-10

Ingredients for...

Biscuits Base:

• 75g Butter, melted
• 28 Oreos (2 x 154g packets), crushed

Cream Cheese Filling:

• 600g Cream Cheese, at room temperature
• 120g Icing Sugar
• 2tsp Vanilla Extract
• 568ml Double Cream (2 x 284ml Elmlea cartons), at room temperature
• 14 Oreos (1 x 154g packet), chopped

Topping:

• 7 Oreos (half a 154g packet), crushed