For kids, a chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk represent a small slice of heaven; for adults, a chocolate chip cookie cheesecake and a cup of strong coffee are likelier to hit the spot. It still has the flavors you know and love but in a richer form.
This chocolate chip cookie cheesecake recipe takes just 20 minutes, not counting baking and cooling time. Use the best chocolate chip cookies you have at your disposal, whether store-bought or made from scratch.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Cheesecake Recipe Ingredients
- Cookie crumbs: Chocolate chip cookie crumbs are used in place of the usual graham crumbs to make the crust and also appear as a garnish in the topping.
- Sugar: Sugar is used as a sweetener in the crust, filling and topping.
- Butter: Butter works with the crumbs and the sugar to bind up the crust and give it its texture.
- Cream cheese: Cream cheese is the signature ingredient in American-style cheesecakes, giving the filling a rich flavor and a slight tang to counter its sweetness.
- Flour: The modest amount of all-purpose flour in the filling acts as a thickener and stabilizer, helping the filling to a firm consistency.
- Eggs: The eggs and egg yolks are the primary thickener for the filling, helping it set to a firm but tender texture. The yolks also add richness.
- Sour cream: Sour cream complements the flavor of the cream cheese, adding richness and a similar mild acidity to the filling and the topping.
- Vanilla: Vanilla’s understated yet assertive flavor brings a perception of added richness to the cheesecake and complements the chocolate.
- Chocolate chips: Chocolate is a useful cheesecake ingredient in its own right, and here, it emphasizes the cookie connection as well.
- Orange zest: The orange zest lightens and brightens the filling, bringing out the mild tang of the cream cheese and sour cream.
Directions
Step 1: Make the chocolate chip cookie crust
In a large bowl, combine the cookie crumbs and sugar and then stir in the melted butter. Press the crumb mixture evenly into the bottom of a greased 9 inch springform pan and about 2 inches up the sides. Set the prepared pan aside.
Step 2: Mix the cheesecake filling
In another large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar and flour until they’re smooth and thoroughly mixed. Add the eggs and egg yolks, and beat the mixture on low until the eggs are just combined. Stir in the sour cream and vanilla, then fold in the chocolate chips and orange zest. Pour the filling into the prepared crust, then place the pan on a baking sheet.
Step 3: Bake the cheesecake
Bake the cheesecake at 325°F for 65 to 75 minutes, or until the center is almost set but still slightly wobbly. Remove the cheesecake from the oven and let it stand for 5 minutes.
Step 4: Apply the cheesecake topping
In a small bowl, combine the sour cream, sugar and vanilla until they’re smooth. Spread the topping evenly over the cheesecake and return it to the oven for another eight minutes. Remove it from the oven again and let it cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
Step 5: Cool the cheesecake
Carefully run a knife around the inside of the pan’s edge to loosen the cheesecake from the sides. Cool the cheesecake for one hour longer and then refrigerate it overnight. Garnish the top with the remaining cookie crumbs before serving.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Cheesecake Variations
- Change the chips: Chocolate chip cookies may be almost everyone’s favorite, but there are more kinds of baking chips now than ever before. Swapping the standard semi-sweet chocolate chips for dark chocolate chips or milk chocolate chips keeps the cookie connection. Butterscotch chips and peanut butter chips take the recipe in a whole other direction. If you’ll be sharing the cheesecake with youngsters (or the young at heart), you could even swap the chocolate chips for M&Ms.
- Make it a cookie dough cheesecake: As well-loved as chocolate chip cookies are, for many of us the best part is nibbling the dough before it’s baked. Of course, eating unbaked cookie dough is risky, but you can borrow the eggless faux-cookie dough and methodology from this chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake recipe.
- Riff on the base recipe with other cookies: What are your other favorite cookies? It’s easy enough to tweak the basic recipe to work with them. Consider crushed peanut butter cookies with a peanut butter cheesecake, or snickerdoodles with a holiday spice cheesecake. And it goes without saying that Oreo cheesecake is a slam-dunk alternative, replacing the chocolate chip crumbs with Oreo crumbs and using chopped-up Oreos in place of the chocolate chips.
Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Recipe Tips
What’s the sour cream glaze for on this cheesecake?
The glaze does a number of things. First, it adds another layer of flavor and richness. More importantly, it also gives the cheesecake a smooth, uniform and clean-appearing surface. Cheesecakes often bake with an irregular top or develop cracks if they’re slightly over baked or cool to quickly. The sour cream glaze can help hide that. Finally, its smooth and pretty surface shows the cookie-crumb garnish to good advantage.
How can I make my chocolate chip cheesecake look prettier?
The cheesecake itself is relatively plain, by design. If you want to make it more visually appealing, you have a number of options. One is to drizzle it with a chocolate glaze or ganache, before sprinkling the cookie crumbs. Another is to pipe a dollop of whipped cream on each slice and to nest a half-cookie in the cream as a garnish.
Can I bake this chocolate cheesecake as a bar cookie instead?
Absolutely. Ordinarily you’d need to scale up a recipe if you were switching from a 9 inch round to a 13×9-inch rectangular baking pan, but in this case you actually want the filling to be thinner so it works as a bar. Depending how thick a crust you like, you may need to increase the crumb crust of the recipe by 1/2. Reviewing a few or our other cheesecake bars recipes should give you all the guidance you need.
