Chocolate Bacon Caramel Cheesecake
1package of Chocolate Stripped Shortbread Cookies, made into crumbs
12 oz. extra-crispy Bacon bits
2 Tbs. Butter, melted
2 Tbs. Brown Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Cheesecake:
32 oz. Cream Cheese, room temperature
8 oz. sour cream
½ cup Sugar
½ cup chocolate chips
½ cup crumbled crisp bacon
3 Large Eggs
¼ cup Heavy Cream
1 Tbs. Lemon Juice
1 Tbs. Vanilla Extract
1 Tbs. Rum Extract
Bacon Turtle Topping:
1 cup Sugar
2 Tbs. water
3 Tbs. cold Bacon Grease (chilled until solid) 1 Tbs. Butter
½ cup Heavy Cream
½ package of Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips
½ cup extra-crispy Bacon bits
Directions:
Put your crisp bacon into your food processor and do a rough chop, you don’t want it too fine. Set aside. Put the cookies in next and chop them. Now add all the ingredients to the food processor and pulse a few times until everything is well mixed.
Press into a 9 inch springform pan, I like a thick crust so ours is about ½” thick. We saved the leftover crust crumbs for ice cream. Firm it up by pressing it down flat with the bottom of a glass.
Put your crust onto the Oven at 350 (174c) degrees for 10 minutes.
The Filling
Place the cream cheese and sour cream into the food processor and blend. Now, add the rest of the ingredients for the filling and mix well.
Pour your batter onto the crust and spread it evenly with a spoon. Tap the pan on the counter top to work out any air bubbles. Now place your pan back into the Oven at 350 (174c) degrees for 1 ½ hours.
When the cake is done it will still jiggle in the middle so don’t worry about that. Take a small sharp knife and carefully run it around the sides of the pan to free the cake from it so it won’t crack when you remove the springform. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
I let the cheesecake cool for awhile then added my caramel topping and put it back into the refrigerator overnight.
Bacon Caramel Topping
I have never made caramel before and found this interesting. Put 1 cup of sugar and 2 Tbsp. water into a sauce pan over low heat. Gently stir the sugar as it melts. After it has melted bring it to a low boil and let it boil until it becomes amber in color.
Once it boils it will go quick so have your butter, bacon and bacon grease ready to go into the sauce. When the caramel is a rich amber color, stir in the butter, bacon and bacon grease mixing well. Remove from heat and stir in the cream.
Set aside and let it cool for 15-20 minutes. Then pour over the top of your cheesecake, letting it pool on top of the cheesecake. I put it back into the fridge overnight.
The next morning I removed the side of my pan and made my chocolate sauce. I put ½ of a bag of chocolate chips into a 2 cup measuring cup and micro waved it for 30 seconds. Pulled it out and stirred and gave it another 30 seconds, pulled it back out and stirred and gave it another 15 seconds. Using a tablespoon I bordered the chocolate around the top edge of the cheesecake making a nice ring of chocolate.
— with Mike Michael, Sharon Northcutt and Darrel Ellis.
