A light and tasty caramel cheese cake
The girls and I were cooped up in the house recently with a snowstorm and decided what better time to bake than a snow day? We had all of the ingredients on hand from aspirations of baking over the holidays that just never happened with everything else going on. We used dark brown sugar for the caramel sauce which gave it the rich color. This version we had a pre-made graham cracker crust on hand. Making crust is super easy however and you can get creative with adding crushed pretzels or nuts. I have included instruction for making the crust homemade here.
Ingredients:
For the crust:
2 cups crushed graham crackers
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
For the Caramel Sauce:
1/3 cup butter
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup half and half or heavy whipping cream
1/2 tsp salt
For the Cheesecake:
2 packages of cream cheese. Use the 8 oz packages
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp real vanilla extract
2 eggs at room temp.
Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Stir together the cracker crumbs, sugar, salt and melted butter. Press into the bottom of a pie plate or spring form pan. 9-10 inch
bake for about 8 minutes. Remove and let cool.
Start the caramel sauce. In a medium sized saucepan, combine the brown sugar, half and half and butter. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, stir constantly, whisk occasionally to avoid scorching. Lower the heat to medium and cook for 7 minutes until the mixture thickens. Stir in salt at the last minute. Remove from heat to let cool while preparing cheesecake.
To prepare cheesecake while caramel cools: In a mixing bowl beat together cream cheese and sugar until creamy. add in the vanilla and room temperature eggs and blend till smooth.
Spread all but about 1/4 cup of the caramel sauce over the cooled crust. Then, spread the cream cheese mixture over the top of the caramel sauce. Smooth and even the top with a rubber spatula.
Bake for 30 minutes or until the center is set. (mine actually took 36 minutes) Transfer to a wire rack and bring to room temperature. Cool to cheesecake in the refrigerator for approximately 4 hours before serving.
reheat the remaining caramel sauce before serving and drizzle over top of slices before serving.
Worth the wait before eating!
