Toblerone Cheesecake Bars

The last two Christmases, my friend has given me one of those giant Toblerone bars that I could never eat all by myself. Last year I had to get a lot of help from my family to finish it, but this year I realized that a huge amount of quality chocolate like that was just begging to be baked into something delicious! So I used part of the bar in these Toblerone shortbread cookies, which had a really nice flavour but turned out to be a little on the hard side. That could very well have been my own fault and not the recipe, so I’ll definitely be giving them another try one day. With the rest of the bar, I decided to use them in a dessert I’ve never once not liked: cheesecake!

Because I didn’t have any special occasions coming up that I could serve a big cheesecake at, and because it’s a little hard to send slices of cake to Ryan’s coworkers, I decided to make more portable cheesecake bars. I remembered a recipe from Cookin’ Canuck for Reese’s peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake bars, which I made a couple years ago and got rave reviews for. Because I already knew that recipe was a winner, I decided to use the same recipe for these bars by replacing the Reese’s with Toblerone.

As I expected, these turned out to be amazing! Ryan said this was his favourite cheesecake recipe I’ve ever made, which is saying a lot because I force that man to eat an awful lot of cheesecake (it’s my favourite dessert). I sent them to work with him so that we didn’t eat the entire tray ourselves, and he said his coworkers all absolutely loved them too, and one agreed that it was his favourite cheesecake I’ve made (again, that’s saying a lot, as I send a lot of cheesecake to those guys too!)

If you have some leftover Toblerone chocolate laying around that you don’t know what to do with, make these cheesecake bars! If you don’t have any Toblerone, you can probably find a good sale on some right now in the discounted Christmas treats sections of stores. And if you can’t find any or don’t like Toblerone, you at least have to try the original recipe using Reese’s peanut butter cups, it’s amazing too!

Also, don’t forget that the giveaway to win a great set of Italian food products from Aurora Importing is still on (until Thursday at midnight)! If you haven’t entered yet (and have a Canadian shipping address), head over to this post right now to enter! I’ll be back on Friday morning to announce the winner! [GIVEAWAY OVER]

Toblerone Cheesecake Bars

Adapted from Cookin’ Canuck, who adapted from America’s Test Kitchen

Makes about 16 bars (in an 8x8 pan)

*Note: I was working with a large 400g (14.1oz) Toblerone bar for this recipe, so the "pieces" I refer to are individual pieces from that size bar. You could still make this recipe with a smaller sized bar, but you'd have to adjust the amounts of "pieces" you use.

Ingredients:

For the Crust:

7 whole graham crackers, crushed into crumbs (about 1 cup crumbs)

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

3 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

For the Filling:

2 bricks of cream cheese (250g each), softened

2/3 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1/4 cup sour cream (I used full-fat)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chopped Toblerone chocolate (5 pieces from a large (400g) bar)

For the Topping:

2 pieces of Toblerone chocolate, chopped (from a large (400g) bar)

3 pieces of Toblerone chocolate, melted (from a large (400g) bar)

Directions:

For the Crust:

Preheat oven to 325°F.

Line an 8-inch square baking pan with aluminum foil, leaving a few inches of foil draping over the sides of the pan (which will help with removal later).

Crush the graham crackers in a food processor (or I used a magic bullet) until they form fine crumbs. Transfer the crumbs to a large bowl and add the brown sugar, flour, and salt. Whisk together until well combined. Add the melted butter and mix together with a fork or whisk until all the crumbs are moistened (alternately, if using a food processor you could just add all the ingredients to the food processor with the crumbs and pulse until combined). Transfer the mixture into the prepared pan and press evenly to form the crust.

Bake in the preheated oven until crust is beginning to brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack for about 30 minutes.

For the Filling:

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth, about 3 minutes. Beat in the sugar until well combined, about 1 minute. Beat in eggs one at a time, fully incorporating each egg into the mixture. Beat in sour cream and vanilla until fully combined, about 30 seconds.

Chop 5 Toblerone pieces into small pieces and stir into the cream cheese mixture. Pour the mixture into the pan over the cooled crust and spread evenly. Bake 35-40 minutes, until the edges are set but the middle jiggles slightly when you shake the pan.

Place pan on a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature, about 2 hours. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours and up to 24 hours before serving.

For the Topping:

Melt 3 Toblerone pieces in the microwave (I did it in two 30 second intervals), and transfer melted chocolate to a ziplock bag. Cut a corner off the bag and use it to drizzle half the melted chocolate over the surface of the cheesecake. You may have to cut a larger hole than you're used to for drizzling chocolate, so the nougat pieces don't get stuck. Sprinkle 2 chopped Toblerone pieces evenly on the surface to stick to the chocolate, then drizzle the other half of the melted chocolate over top.

Using the overhanging foil, lift the bars from the pan. Remove the foil and cut bars into 16 pieces (or more for smaller pieces). Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.