CHOCOLATE CHIP CHEESECAKE

For those of you who love cheesecakes as much as I do....this is one tasty recipe!  Creamy and smooth with lots of chocolate chips throughout.  Save up your calories for this one and savor the flavors!

I actually did lighten the recipe up a bit by using the 1/3 fewer calories version of cream cheese and you just can't tell the difference.

INGREDIENTS:

1 ½ cups thin chocolate wafers (Nabisco)

1/3 cup white sugar

1/3 cup butter, melted

3 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese

1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk

3 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 tsp. all purpose flour

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Crush wafers in a food processor, or with a rolling pin.  Mix crumbs, sugar, and butter together.  Press onto *bottom and up the sides of a 9 inch springform pan.  Set crust aside.  

Beat cream cheese until smooth.  Gradually add the condensed milk; beat well.  Add vanilla and eggs, and beat on medium speed until smooth.  Toss 1/3 of the chips with 1 tsp. flour to coat (this keeps them from sinking to the bottom of the cake).  Mix into cheese mixture.  Pour into the prepared crust. Sprinkle the top of the cake with the remaining chocolate chips.  

Bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour.  Turn off oven (do not open the oven door) and leave the cake in the oven to cool for another hour.  Remove from the oven and cool completely.  Refrigerate before removing the sides of the pan.  Keep refrigerated until time to serve.  

Add dollop of whip cream to each slice of the cake prior to serving.    Enjoy!

*I placed a piece of parchment paper on the bottom of the springform pan to make it easier to remove from the pan and possibly plate.  It worked great....although since I was bringing this with me to a dinner I didn't actually plate the entire cake, but sliced it and served pieces up individually. 

Recipe c/o:  Allrecipes.com