White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cheesecake with Caramel

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The name is lame because I made it up, but I made the recipe up, so I get to name it whatever I want. This was awesome (if you like cheesecake), It gets a 9. I used the typical cheesecake base, and then altered it a bit and added things in that sounded good. It was a success. Next time, I think I am actually going to make a half cheesecake filling recipe and do a white chocolate mousse on top instead. Anyway, here is what I did:

Oreo Crust:

For the crust, pulverize oreos (about 24) and mix with 1/4 c.-ish of
butter to make the crust. Press in 9" springform and bake at 350 for 5
minutes to crust-i-fy.

On top of the crust, chop up macadamia nut clusters from Costco (they are sold by the nuts that are in plastic containers, such as cashews, chocolate almonds, etc.). I used about half of a container. On top of the candy, pour the filling.

Cheesecake filling


4 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, room temp
1/2 cup white sugar
2 T. milk
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream (I used a scant cup)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 T. all-purpose flour

2 cups of white chocolate, melted (I used Guittard brand A’peels from Orson Gygi, and it was awesome—it was probably about 12 oz. and I measured it before I melted it.)

Mix cream cheese and sugar until there are no lumps. Add milk and stir
to combine. Add eggs one at a time. Add sour cream, vanilla and flour and
stir until smooth.  Then stir in melted chocolate.

Then, I baked at 350 for 1 hour, turned off oven and left in for 2 more hours. Cool completely and chill for 8 hours.

When it’s cool, add chopped macadamia nuts, and caramel (I used that runny caramel of death from the caramel cheesecake that took 8 failed attempts to make , and I drizzled it on top).

Caramel

In a bowl, mix together with a fork:

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 cup water

Now, pour this carefully right in the middle of a large saucepan. Do NOT get any on the sides. Now, put the heat on high, like around 8. Don’t touch anything. It will start to boil. And it will keep boiling, and it might look a bit like crusty sugar on the top. Don’t touch it. Gradually, it will start to turn color. Now, very carefully, take a fork and kind of move it about (I actually took some of the hard sugar from the sides and kind of moved it to the center). Now, it will turn a dark amber color. Almost like dark honey. Now, take 3/4 cup of warm cream and pour it in while your stir like crazy. You might get splatted a bit. Take it off the heat kind of as you’re stirring it. Now, add 2 T. butter, a pinch of salt, and 1/2 tsp vanilla. It will be runny, and it will be a bit darker than peanut butter. Offer up a dance of thanksgiving that your caramel did not mess up, as mine did 7 times previous to me finding this method.

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