Chocolate Swirl Tofu Cheesecake

I have been absent for so long, I feel guilty! After shopping at Macy's on a Saturday a couple of weeks ago, I went to my favorite coffee shop and treated myself to a piece of peanut butter cheesecake. Because Macy's Herald Square during holidays is surely one of the circles of hell- maybe the one where they send obnoxious tourists? The cheesecake was delicious and I immediately decided I had to make my own. After all, an entire cheesecake at $6 a slice would be too expensive. At first I was going to adapt a different cheesecake recipe to a peanut butt version, but then I remembered the Chocolate Swirl Tofu Cheesecake page 454.

I love making cookie crumb crusts after the success of my pumpkin cheesecake. This one is made from chocolate cookies- I used Newman's Own chocolate alphabet cookies. I ended up using a little bit more cookie crumbs and margarine than the recipe called for, but I couldn't tell you how much more- I went by eye. The filling was easy to whip up in my trusty food processor and was ready quickly. And scraping the filling off the sides of the processor bowl was a delicious preview of the finished product. The funnest part was pouring in the melted chocolate and swirling it into the cheesecake. I felt like an artist! Or at least like a kid fingerpainting (with a knife, but let's not get technical). My oven is a bit wonky so I had to bake it a bit longer-I'd say an extra ten minutes. The worst part was that I made this late. I had it out of the oven at 11:30. Then it had to cool on the counter; then be refrigerated for four hours. So no cheesecake last night. No matter- cheesecake is a perfectly acceptable breakfast- especially when it has peanut butter and banana in it.

I really like the finished cheesecake, but it tastes more like banana than peanut butter. Next time I will use cornstarch instead and up the peanut butter. I'll also substitute maple syrup for some of the sugar for added moisture. It is also pretty to look at, at least before I cut into it. Now I'm off to eat another piece!

--vegankitty