Oreo Cheesecake Bites

36 Oreo® Cookies, divided
¼ C (4 T/56 g) unsalted butter
4 pkgs (8 oz/227 g ea) cream cheese, softened
1 C (7 oz/198 g) granulated sugar
1 C (8 oz/236 ml) sour cream, room temperature
1 t (5 ml) vanilla extract
4 large eggs, room temperature
4 oz (113 g) semisweet chocolate
4 oz (113 g) white chocolate

Position oven rack in middle position and heat to 325° F (163° C). Line a 9 × 13-inch baking pan with foil, with ends extending over sides. Using food processor or gallon freezer bag and rolling pin, finely crush 24 Oreo cookies (entire cookie). Melt ¼ cup butter and mix with crumbs. Press into bottom of pan.

In bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat cream cheese and sugar on medium speed until blended. A hand mixer works as well here if you don’t have stand mixer. Add sour cream and vanilla; mix well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each just until blended. Chop or break up remaining cookies. Gently stir cookies pieces in to batter with spatula. Pour over crust.

Bake cheesecake for 35 to 40 minutes or until sides are set and center is almost set. Rotate pan one half turn midway through baking. Cool completely in pan on wire rack.

When completely cooled, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. When chilled, remove cheesecake using foil sling and cut cheesecake into bite-sized pieces. Place pieces on parchment paper-lined baking tray. Melt semisweet and white chocolate in separate bowls (I use microwave on 50% power, stirring frequently). Pour melted chocolate into Ziploc® bag, one for each. Snip small corner off bag and drizzle chocolate over bars. Chill bars until ready to serve

Makes: 48 (1 x 1 ¼-inch bars) cookies

Considering this is a Mel’s Kitchen Café recipe, I pretty much followed it as written with the following minor changes. I used clear vanilla extract because I had it on hand and I wanted the cheese cake to remain white. Also, Mel did not say how to finely crush the Oreos for the crust so I used a food processor (FP) but I could have also used a gallon freezer bag and a rolling pin. Needless to say, the FP was easiest/fastest. I tried several utensils to press the crumbs into the pan. Most stuck to the crumb mixture except the small silicon spatula. It worked very well. I started out to mix the cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl with the hand mixer. I change my mind and decided to do it with my KitchenAid stand mixer instead. I’m confident the hand mixer would have worked but again, it was so much easier and quicker with the KitchenAid. That is what I’d recommend to any one else who has a stand mixer. Because I wanted larger cookie chunks for cookies/ batter, I broke those up by hand. I baked in the island oven for 40 minutes. At 35 minutes, the center still looked a little too giggly for me. At 40, it was much more firm. Cooled completely on wire rack and then refrigerated for several hours. Surface developed several cracks but nothing too big. Melted the chocolates in microwave and applied using sandwich bag technique. After refrigerating again to firm things up, I cut using my chef’s knife running under hot water into 6 x 8 or a total of 48 pieces approximately 1 x 1 ¼-inch or nice bite size pieces. Good cheese cake texture and nice flavor although not all that sweet.