Mint Chocolate Cheesecake
This vibrant colored Mint Chocolate Cheesecake is great for any chocolate mint lover. It has a mint chocolate oreo crust, a green mint cheesecake filling with bits of milk chocolate folded into it. It’s the perfect St. Patrick’s Day cheesecake!
Do you know someone that’s crazy for a mint chocolate dessert? Both my son and husband are crazy for the combination.
As I was testing this recipe, the first try I added a little bit too much mint extract. Okay, it was WAY too much. By the time my husband got to the piece of candy that was on top of the mint whipped cream, he couldn’t taste a thing. He said to me, “This tastes off.” I was like could it be the intense mint flavor that’s saturating your taste buds and making everything else taste off?
Mint Chocolate Cheesecake
To get started with how to make a mint chocolate cheesecake, let’s make sure you have the ingredients that are needed.
- Original Oreo Cookies
- Mint Oreo Cookies (optional)
- butter
- Cream cheese
- granulated sugar
- vanilla extract
- mint extract
- large eggs
- sour cream
- heavy cream
- milk chocolate bars, mini chocolate chips, or Andes Creme De Menthe baking chips
- green gel food color
The first 3 ingredients are for the mint chocolate oreo crust. If you don’t mind buying both original oreos and mint oreos, I would, but it’s not necessary. The original Oreos will taste amazing.
The remaining ingredients are for the mint chocolate cheesecake filling.
Mint Chocolate Oreo Crust
To make this mint chocolate oreo crust, you’ll need both Original Oreos and Mint Oreos. If you don’t want to buy both kinds of Oreos, just go for the originals. There’s enough mint in the cheesecake filling to satisfy that minty craving.
Add the Oreos to a food processor to get a fine crumb. If you try to smash the cookies in a storage bag with a rolling pin, the cookie filling ends up just sticking to the bag and it becomes a huge pain in the behind.
Sometimes I get lazy and use my mini chopper instead of getting out my big food processor. I can’t recommend a mini chopper to use, because mine all seem to break within the first 6 months.
Add melted butter to the crumb and pulse until the crumbs are coated with the butter. Sugar isn’t needed for a cookie base crust. Then firmly press the crumbs into the bottom of the springform pan. Bake in a preheated oven for 10 to 13 minutes.
Mint Chocolate Cheesecake Filling
One of the most important things to remember when making a cheesecake is to have the cream cheese at room temperature. If you think it might still be slightly chilled, beat the cream cheese by itself with the hand mixer. Don’t add anything other than the cream cheese, not even the sugar! Then mix until it’s completely creamy.
Lumpy cheesecake is no joke.
Once there are lumps and you start adding any sort of ingredient that provides a liquid, you’re stuck with the lumps.
Next up, add in the sugar and work that in with a hand mixer. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add in the vanilla and mint extracts, and one egg at a time. Scrape bowl after adding the eggs. Add in the gel food color, sour cream, and heavy cream and mix until combined. Stir in the chopped candy bars, mini chocolate chips, or creme de menthe baking chips. I used chopped milk chocolate bars, but use whatever you prefer.
Spray down the sides of the pan with nonstick cooking spray and add the batter to the pan. This will keep the cheesecake from sticking to the sides of the springform pan.
Pop it in the oven and bake until done.
Mint Whipped Cream
I really love how the green mint whipped cream looks on top of the ganache. It gives a nice contract and brings the cheesecake together. Although it wasn’t the easiest to photograph.
To make the mint whipped cream, beat the heavy cream with a hand mixer until soft peaks form. Add in the powdered sugar, mint extract, and green gel food color and continue to beat until stiff peaks form.
Add the whipped cream to a piping bag fitted with a 1M piping tip and pipe swirls on top of the cheesecake. That’s all it takes!
Can I substitute mint extract with peppermint extract? I would recommend getting the mint extract otherwise you’ll have peppermint cheesecake rather than mint. The mint extract has spearmint as well as peppermint in it to give it a different flavor than the peppermint extract.
Can I use chocolate chips instead of chopped milk chocolate bars? Yes! You can use any chocolate chip or baking chip you want. I used Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Candy bars for mine.
Mint Chocolate Cheesecake
Ingredients
Crust
- 14 oreo cookies
- 8 mint oreo cookies
- 4 tablespoons butter melted
Cheesecake Filling
- 24 ounces cream cheese room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon mint extract
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 6 Hershey's 1.55 ounce Milk Chocolate Candy Bars chopped
- 2 to 4 drops green gel food coloring
Ganache
- 3/4 cup milk chocolate chips
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
Whipped Cream
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon mint extract
- 2 to 3 drops green gel food coloring
- Andes Chocolate Mints
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Crust
- In a food processor, add in the oreo cookies. Pulse until the oreo cookies are a fine crumb.
- Add the melted butter into the oreo cookie crumbs and pulse a couple of times until the butter has coated all of the crumbs
- Dump the cookie crumbs into a 9-inch springform pan. Press them firmly into the bottom of the pan.
- Place the pan into the preheated oven and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool while you work on the cheesecake filling.
Cheesecake Filling
- In a large mixing bowl, add in the cream cheese. Beat on medium until creamy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Add the sugar in with the cream cheese. Beat on medium until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Add the vanilla extract, mint extract, and the eggs one at a time into the cream cheese mixture. Beat until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
- Add in the sour cream, heavy cream, and green gel food color and beat until the food color is evenly distributed.
- Stir in the chopped chocolate.
- Wrap the bottom of the springform pan with heavy tin foil. I always double wrap it to prevent leaking. Place the cheesecake into a slightly bigger pan and fill with 1 to 2 inches of hot water. Make sure the tin foil protects the cheesecake so water doesn’t leak into it.
- Spray the sides of the springform pan with nonstick cooking spray.
- Pour the cheesecake batter on top of the oreo cookie crust.
- Place in the oven. Let the cheesecake bake for 1 hour 20minutes or until done. To make sure the cheesecake is done, give it a wiggle. If it slightly jiggles in JUST the middle like jello, then it’s done. If it jiggles all over, it needs to bake longer. Turn off the heat and open oven door a crack. Let it cool in the oven.
- Place into the fridge and chill for at least 4 hours but I recommend overnight.
Ganache
- In a microwave-safe bowl, add in the chocolate chips and heavy cream. Microwave for 1 minute and stir until the heavy cream is incorporated. Microwave one more time for 30 seconds and stir until the ganache comes together and is smooth.
- Pour onto the cheesecake. Chill for at least 30 minutes. You can do this before it chills in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight as well.
Whipped Cream
- In a large mixing bowl, add in the heavy cream. Beat on medium until soft peaks form.
- Add in the powdered sugar, mint extract, and green gel food coloring and beat until stiff peaks form.
- Add the whipped cream in a piping bag fitted with the 1M tip.
- Pipe swirls on the top of the chilled cheesecake. Add the Andes chocolate mints on top of each swirl of whipped cream.
- Slice and serve! Store in the fridge.
OMG that is gorgeous! And now I’m going to be dreaming about mint cheesecake all day today!
<3 Thank you!
Miranda, You have me confused on the chocolate for the filling for your Mint Chocolate Cheesecake. The recipe just calls for “6 Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Candy Bars chopped) I may have 6 of the little Trick or Treat bars around. Will 6 of those work. Hershey’s must make a dozen sized of their chocolate bars.
Even more confusing is your narrative on the filling which reads “milk chocolate bars, mini chocolate chips, or Andes Creme De Menthe baking chips” with no quantity specific.
Can you help me here?
Hi Neal! I’m happy to help! The milk chocolate candy bars that I used are the regular 1.55-ounce bars. In terms of cups, it would roughly be 1 1/2 cups of chopped chocolate pieces.
As for the directions, I was giving options in the filling, so you can use the 6 milk chocolate candy bars or substitute it with roughly 1 1/2 cups of mini chocolate chips or Andes Creme De Menthe baking chips.
You don’t mention the green food coloring in the ingredients for the filling. How much?
Thanks for letting me know! 2 to 4 drops.
Very good, loved the creamy texture! Mine wasn’t as green, because I didn’t have green food coloring…mixed blue and yellow!
My cheesecake didn’t firm up after 24 hours in the frig Thoroughly disappointed.
Oh no! It sounds like it wasn’t completely baked. Did you do the shake test to make sure the center was set up like jell-o and the edges didn’t move at all before you turned off the heat?
What size springform pan do you use? Can this recipe be doubled to feed more people?
I use a 9 inch springform pan. I haven’t tried doubling it but it should work but may take longer to bake if you’re putting all of the batter in one pan instead of two.