Baked Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake—Prototype 9:
 
This one involved just a small change. The chocolatey crust was introduced to a bit of peanut butter flavor, by means of some chips.
 
3-Cheese Blend (3CT-1NC-2YG):
Prepare ahead of time 16 ounces of yogurt cheese, derived from one 32-ounce container of nonfat yogurt. If the resulting yogurt cheese falls below 16 ounces, add back enough of the whey (that was strained out from the yogurt) to make up the difference. To this yogurt cheese combine 24 ounces of whipped, lowfat cottage cheese and 8 ounces of softened Neufchatel cheese ("light cream cheese").

Grease a 9 1/2" (or 9") pan, but do not wrap foil around it until just before the batter is added (spreading the crust in an already wrapped pan can result in greater disturbance to the foil, thus increasing leakage risks).

Chocolate/Peanut Butter Crust:
2 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, melted
2 oz. peanut butter chips, melted
3/8 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
8 oz. (1 cup) 3-cheese blend (see above)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 oz. finely ground All-Bran

Place the resulting mixture in the greased pan and pre-bake without tub at 300 degrees for 10 minutes, then cool enough to comfortably touch at least the pan's upper sidewall.

Chocolate Batter:
7/8 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
20 oz. (2 1/2 cups) 3-cheese blend (see above)
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
3 eggs

Wrap the pan in foil at this point. Carefully pour the batter on top of the crust and bake all this in a hot water tub at 325 degrees for about 30 minutes. Afterwards, take the tub-and-pan assembly out of the oven and promptly add the batter indicated below.

Peanut Butter Batter:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
4 oz. unsalted peanut butter
20 oz. (2 1/2 cups) 3-cheese blend (see above)
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
3 eggs

Carefully scoop this on top of the chocolate batter (it is best to do this around the edge of the pan and let the peanut butter batter flow towards the middle) and return the tub-and-pan assembly to the oven, this time at only 300 degrees. Bake for about 55 more minutes (if using a 9 1/2" pan). Then shut off the oven and cool the cheesecake down while still in it (and in tub), with the oven door slightly ajar, for about an hour. Afterwards, remove the cheesecake (still in its springform pan) from the oven and tub and continue to cool it down at room temperature for another two hours. As an option, immediately after removal from the oven, decorate this cheesecake with chocolate and/or peanut butter chips (or peanut butter cup candies such as miniature size cups or broken pieces of larger cups) around its edge.

After cooling down at room temperature, remove the cheesecake from its pan and refrigerate.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake—Prototype 9

I made this cheesecake for a sendoff lunch which my church, Living Hope, held for our worship leader (and an excellent piano player) Simon Miner, who would be getting married and moving on to another church, attended by his fiancé. Therefore, I asked Simon to choose a cheesecake flavor, and he selected this one.

Although this dessert ended up being only about halfway gone before I took the rest home, I felt that the outcome was still pretty good, because my cheesecake was served at a meal that included a generous spread of desserts, including an "assorted variety" cheesecake brought by someone else (which itself seemed to fare almost as well as mine).
 

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