Inspired by Snickers bars (still “Marathon” to some of us!), this no bake cheesecake is a a decadent combination of chocolate, caramel and peanut.

All credit for this recipe goes to the lovely Jane over at Jane’s Patisserie. She is a cheesecake genius and her website features over forty cheesecake recipes. Make sure you check it out!

Following some suggestions from Jane, I made a couple of changes to her recipe. She has all sorts of helpful ideas as to how to make the recipe even more peanutty, so take a look at her original recipe if that’s what you’re after.

Ingredients (12 large slices of Snickers no bake cheesecake):

For the base –

• 325 g /  11.5 oz digestive biscuits
• 25 g /  1 oz cocoa powder
• 150 g / 5.5 oz butter

For the cheesecake layer –

• 600 g /  21 oz cream cheese
• 100 g /  3.5 oz icing sugar
• 100 g / 3.5 oz caramel
• 0.5 tsp vanilla extract
• 200 g / 7 oz milk chocolate
• 300 ml / 10.5 fl oz double cream
• 250 g / 9 oz Snickers bars, chopped

For decoration –

• 50 g / 2 oz caramel
• Chopped peanuts
• 12 pieces of Snickers (I used 2 Snickers bars to get these)

Method:

You’ll need a deep 8-inch (20 cm) springform tin. You might have a fantastically non-stick one, but I put a piece of greaseproof baking paper on the bottom of the tin just in case.

To make the Snickers cheesecake base, first crush the digestive biscuits. You can use a food processor if you have one, or use my preferred method of putting them in a plastic bag and alternatively bashing and rolling them with a rolling pin: a great stress buster! Melt the butter in a large bowl, either over a pan of simmering water or by giving it bursts of heat in the microwave. Add the cocoa powder and crushed biscuits to the melted butter. Stir the ingredients until the chocolate and butter is evenly distributed through the biscuit crumb.

Spoon the biscuit mix into your springform tin and press down until you have a tightly-packed, even layer. Put the tin in the fridge to chill while you’re making the cheesecake filling.

I’d recommend chopping the Snickers bars into small pieces before you do anything else so you have them ready to go later on.

Break the 200 g of milk chocolate into small pieces and melt, either in the microwave using short bursts of heat between stirs or in a heat-proof bowl over a pan of simmering water.

While your chocolate is cooling, get on with making the rest of the Snickers no bake cheesecake filling. You can use electric hand beaters for this bit, or a stand mixer if you have one. In a large bowl beat together the icing sugar, cream cheese, caramel and vanilla until your mixture is smooth. I’d stir through the icing sugar by hand before using the beaters to prevent getting yourself and your kitchen covered in an icing sugar cloud.

You can use tinned caramel or make your own from condensed milk. I did the latter by heating some condensed milk in a heavy-bottomed pan until it caramelised, but it is much quicker and easier to just buy it ready-made.

Add the cooler melted chocolate to your filling mix and keep mixing through. When all these ingredients are combined, add the double cream. You’ll now need to mix quite a bit until the mixture thickens up nicely like a mousse. I think I should have beaten my mixture for another couple of minutes. But don’t despair if you accidentally undermix, it’ll all come right in the end, even if you have to eat your cheesecake from a bowl using a spoon!

When your mixture is nice and thick, gently fold in the chopped Snickers pieces.

Spoon the Snickers cheesecake filling into your tin on top of the biscuit base, spread until even and smooth.

Put the Snickers cheesecake in your fridge to chill. Jane is absolutely right when she says it’s best to chill it overnight if you want to be sure it’ll be firm for cutting. However, we were much to eager to eat it and so it only got 5 hours of chilling before decorating and was slightly “wobbly” as a result (although still entirely delicious!).

I decorated the cake while it was still in the tin, just in case of collapse. Drizzle the caramel over the top of the cheesecake, sprinkle with peanuts and finally place your Snickers pieces at even intervals around the cake to mark out your slices.

Carefully remove the outside of the tin. If your cake has set well enough and if you’re brave enough to make the move, remove it from the base. Alternatively, play it safe like I did and leave the cheesecake on the tin base!

If the cake doesn’t set very well, Jane recommends freezing it and serving it as ice cream cheesecake, which is a great idea and means you really can’t go wrong!

This Snickers no bake cheesecake will keep in the fridge, covered, for three days.

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If you would like other recipes featuring a little cheesecake:

 

 

Chocolate cheesecake brownies.

 

 

 

 

Red velvet swirl brownies (with cheesecake layer).

 

 

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Claire Huston / Art and Soul