It’s easy to turn a delicious dessert into a spooky Halloween treat. Smooth peanut butter cheesecake and white chocolate cheesecake are swirled together on top of sweet graham cracker crust and topped with white chocolate drizzle. Use white chocolate to decorate a cheesecake with a spider web or just drizzle it on top to suit any occasion.
PEANUT BUTTER CHEESECAKE
Finally, tomorrow is October. It might be an odd thing to say but you would understand if you knew my son. He is SUPER excited for October and Halloween. Every day, he wants to go over the calendar and see how many days are left until October. It doesn’t stop there because he talks about it all day long. I can’t even imagine what the wait for October 31st will be like.
Little man’s choices for toys have been pumpkins and jack-o’-lanterns lately. He wants a new one every time we go to the store. One of the store clerks was saying that she’s never seen a kid who is that excited over pumpkins. The apple doesn’t fall that far from the tree, I guess.
I get just as excited about pumpkin season. Although, my excitement would be for different reasons. While he loves to play with anything that looks like a pumpkin and jack-o’-lantern, I get excited about cooking with pumpkin.
With the Halloween approaching quickly, we are deep into the holiday mood. The house is decorated with adorable witches, ghosts, and jack-o’-lanterns. We have three costumes picked out, and I’m sure that between all the festivities, we will get to wear all three of them. And, you probably noticed that we’ve been playing around with Halloween food ideas.
We made some Nightmare Before Christmas Pumpkin Cookies for this year’s first Halloween movie night. We’ve experimented with making spiders out of soft pretzels. And now, we’ve even started to turn our dessert into a fun Halloween treat.
White chocolate is perfect for this decoration and makes it very easy to make a spiderweb out of. There are a few flavor combinations that go well with white chocolate and one of my favorites is peanut butter. If you haven’t tried combining white chocolate and peanut butter yet, don’t wait any longer and do it. It’s divine!
Tip: my White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake would also make a great Halloween Spider Web Cheesecake.
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Spider Web Cheesecake (White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake)
Ingredients
Crust:
- 1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 5 Tbsp melted unsalted butter
Cheesecake:
- 32 oz packs of cream cheese softened
- ½ cup sour cream
- 2 eggs
- ¾ cup heavy whipping cream
- ¾ cup white granulated sugar
- 2 Tbsp corn starch
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1/2 cup white chocolate melts it will be about 1/4 cup melted
Topping:
- 1 cup white chocolate melts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and grease a 9 inch springform pan. You will need a large roasting pan that’s bigger and longer than the springform pan. (I use the aluminum foil disposable ones). If you are not sure about your springform holding up in water, you can wrap the outside of the springform pan in heavy duty aluminum foil from bottom up to the sides.)
Crust:
- In a small bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, vanilla extract and brown sugar. Mix very well.
- Spread crumb mixture in the bottom on the spring form, evenly, pressing it over the bottom and about half way up the sides.
Cheesecake:
- In a bowl of an electric mixer, beat cream cheese on medium-high speed until smooth and fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Scrape sides and bottom of the bowl and beat for another minute.
- Add eggs, one at the time, beating after each addition.
- Add vanilla extract and sour cream. Beat until incorporated. Scrape sides and bottom on the bowl.
- Pour in heavy whipping cream and beat until smooth and all completely incorporated. (If it starts to splatter while pouring in the heavy cream, you can lower the speed until the cream is incorporated and then raise it back up.)
- Lower speed and add sugar and corn starch. Make sure that all ingredients are well combined. Scrape sides and bottom on the bowl and beat for a few more seconds, until all smooth.
- Take out about 1/3 of the batter into a separate mixing bowl.
- Add peanut butter to the larger amount of batter in the mixer and beat until evenly incorporated. Scrape sides and bottom of the bowl and mix again until smooth.
- Melt the 1/2 cup of white chocolate melts according to the package instructions. (Don't overcook.) Pour melted white chocolate into the smaller portion of the batter while whisking. Whisk until all smooth.
- Pour the peanut butter cheesecake batter into the pan with crust and make sure it's spread evenly. Drop white chocolate cheesecake batter over the peanut butter batter and gently swirl them together. Don't mix them, just swirl. (Try not to scrape the crust.) Gently shake and pat the springform to even out the top of the batter.
- Place roasting pan into the oven and place cheesecake springform pan inside the roasting pan. Carefully add water to the roasting pan, about half way up the side of the springform.
- Bake for about 85 minutes. Turn off the oven and open the oven door half way. Let cheesecake rest for about 5 minutes and take it out of the oven (out of the roasting pan and carefully take off the foil).
- Let it rest for 10 minutes on the counter and then gently run a greased butter knife between sides of the cheesecakes and the springform to carefully separate it. (You don't actually have to take the cheesecake out of the pan until ready to serve.)
- Cool cheesecake for an hour and then place in the refrigerator. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before decorating.
Topping:
- Melt white chocolate melts according to the package instructions and make sure not to overheat it (especially if using a microwave.)
- Fit a piping bag with a thin attachment meant for writing (I use #2 Wilton attachment).
- Pour melted white chocolate into the piping bag and carefully decorate the whole cheesecake with a spider web.
- *If preparing the cheesecake for any other occasion, generously drizzle the cheesecake with white chocolate.
Nutrition
Debra Ebner says
Do you boil the water before adding it to the aluminum pan? And does it matter how much water?
LyubaB says
No, you don’t need to boil the water first. It does matter how much water, you want to add it about halfway up the side of the springform pan.
Jason says
This looks so good!
Jennifer says
Question regarding your ingredients list compared to your instructions for the white chocolate peanut butter cheesecake. In your ingredient list, you have heavy cream listed. No where in your instructions is heavy cream mentioned. I also looked to see if anyone else noticed this and asked. I had no choice but to look at other recipes from you to see where the heavy cream is added. I had to make this decision and am hoping I am making the correct one. Can you please correct on your site so others are able to make this? Your desserts look devine and everyone should be able to make these without question. Thanks so much 🙂
Taylor says
Same, wondering that now!!
lyuba says
Jennifer and Taylor, I’m so sorry I missed that comment last year!
Jennifer, you were absolutely right. The cream is added with the sour cream and vanilla, to the batter base. (Before other flavor are added.) I will fix that right away and thank you so much for letting me know!