Salted Caramel Cheesecake
We recently celebrated Blondie’s 10th birthday & guess what that boy requested for his birthday cake?? ((Well, you probably don’t need to guess, since I gave it away in the title & featured photo…)) So, good job! You are right. He picked cheesecake. Originally, he had an elaborate idea of making me stack a cookie, birthday cake and layers of buttercream on top of a vanilla cheesecake and I quickly, and nicely, refused.
We started brainstorming flavor ideas and after a few minutes it hit me – the perfect flavor :: salted caramel. Shep was immediately locked in – he LOVES my homemade salted caramel. The prospect of using it to make a cheesecake meant lots of taste-tests for the birthday boy.
To his disappointment, I made the cheesecake while he slept ((but I saved the drizzling for him, so “licks-a-plenty” were still in-store.
I used my go-to cheesecake recipe, making only a few adjustments in order to create the perfect Salted Caramel Cheesecake::
- the crust was a combination of Ritz and chocolate wafer cookies ((a little salty, a little sweet and a pop of chocolate — crazy good))
- replace granulated sugar with brown sugar
- fold in 4 oz of jarred salted caramel
- 5 additional minutes of baking time
The remainder of this simple, delicious, perfect cheesecake recipe stays the same!
Once the cheesecake cooled, I noticed ((kind of hard to miss, actually)) that my chilled salted caramel cheesecake had cracked during the cool-down phase. Boo.
Otherwise, the cheesecake was PERFECT. Isn’t that chocolate crust beautiful?? A cracked top really is no big deal — and I have the best solution…
Sweetened homemade whipped cream will cure what ails you! Let’s take an aerial view…
We could stop right there & I would be happy! But, a salted caramel cheesecake needs a little something extra — don’t you agree?
Let’s take a closer look –
Notice the little flakes of salt over the salted caramel? How about how that perfectly thickened homemade salted caramel sauce runs over the edge of the cheesecake, across the buttery chocolate crust and pools onto the plate. I had to refrain from “cleaning” all of that up.
Somebody was pleased.