easy cheesecake recipe

Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Ruthanne

Creamy chocolate cheesecake topped with a layer of raspberry and sour cream. Unbelievably yummy!!!

If you follow my blog on a regular basis, you will remember this cheesecake from last fall. It is my Aunt’s recipe and it is literally the best cheesecake I’ve ever eaten. It is so creamy and smooth…oh my.

I decided to add a few twists to the recipe by making it chocolate and adding raspberries to the topping. It worked beautifully and added so much flavor! It is really quite easy to make. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!!!!

Here’s the recipe (printable version):

INGREDIENTS:

Crust:

1 1/4 cups Honeymaid graham cracker crumbs
5 tablespoons butter, melted
3 tablespoons sugar

Filling:

3/4 cup sugar
3 (8 oz.) Philadelphia cream cheese bars (must be the Philadelphia brand)~ softened to room temperature.
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon lemon juice
pinch of salt
1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Topping:

1 pint (2 cups) sour cream
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
pinch of salt
1/3 cup of canned raspberry pie filling

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350F degrees.
In a medium bowl, combine crust ingredients together until well combined.
Press into a 9″ spring form pan, pressing crumbs into bottom and about 1 1/2″ up sides of pan.
For the filling, combine the sugar and softened cream cheese in a large mixing bowl and beat together until smooth.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating between each addition.
Add the vanilla, lemon juice and salt and beat until smooth and creamy.
Melt the one cup of chocolate until smooth, and add to cheesecake mixture, beating until completely incorporated.
Pour into crust.
Bake at 350F degrees for 35-45 minutes.
While cheesecake is baking, make topping by simply mixing together all of the topping ingredients.
After 35-45 minutes of baking, remove cheesecake from oven and turn oven down to 325F degrees.
Pour topping over hot cheesecake, gently spreading to edges.
Return cheesecake to oven and bake for an additional 12-15 minutes.
Remove cheesecake from oven and leave sides on pan while allowing cheesecake to cool to room temperature.
Refrigerate several hours (or overnight)
Run a small knife around the edges of the pan and remove them before serving.
Serve with extra raspberry pie filling– YUM!
Enjoy!!!!

My thoughts: You can see in my pictures that I added a cup of raspberry pie filling over the crust before I poured the cheesecake batter in. It was really yummy, but made it hard to remove the bottom of the springform pan (which I always do before pictures). If you don’t mind leaving the bottom on, this is a yummy addition to the recipe! Just gently spread it out over your graham crust and pour the cheesecake over the top.