Oreo cheesecake

How did I not think of this before? Oreo cheesecake; two of the best things in the world, combined!
So in Beijing, we ate a lot of Oreos. Mainly because they are the only cookies that have a somewhat reasonable price (a roll of Oreos costs about 5 Yuan, whereas other cookies, such as chocolate chip, start around 45 Yuan. Still not a lot of money, but when something is 9 times more expensive than something else, and that something else is perfectly good... the choice is easy), and of course because they're well, Oreos.
All this Oreo-eating got me thinking; I wanted to bake something new, but I don't really have the time to go proper recipe hunting, and I should be able to make it quite quickly because I didn't have enough time to do serious baking before my friend came round for tea last Thursday. So, cheesecake is the perfect solution, as you can make it one day ahead and everybody (well, most people) like it. And then I thought: why not use Oreos for the base? And so the Oreo cheesecake was born.

I've done cheesecakes before, notably the double chocolate cheesecake, so I worked from those recipes, tweaking them somewhat to meet the stuff I actually had bought.

Ingredients:
154 g crushed Oreo cookies (the amount in one packet)
75 g butter (melted)
500 g mascarpone
200 g cream cheese
100 g sugar
1 tablespoon cocoa powder

Crushing Oreo cookies is a bit of a challenge, because the slippery white stuff in the middle means you'll mostly be separating the two biscuits instead of actually breaking them, but that's fine. As long as you end up with somewhat smaller Oreo bits.
Line the bottom of your tin with baking paper. Mix your Oreo bits with the melted butter, and add to the cake tin. Leave to cool (if the next steps take a while, you can put it in the fridge at some point (never put it in the fridge straightaway - melted butter is really hot and you're fridge won't like that)).
It won't look very appetising at this point:

Oreos and melted butter, hmmm.

But it's all about the taste!
For the cream cheese mixture, mix all the rest of the ingredients together until they are light(er) and fluffy(er). I added cocoa powder to make it a bit more chocolaty, but you can leave that out or replace it with something else (vanilla, or lemon). Spoon the mixture on top of your Oreo base and leave in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
You can line the sides of your tin with more baking paper, but experience has taught me that the cheesecake mixture will only cling to the paper instead of the tin, so I usually don't bother anymore. I just use a sharp knife to separate your cheesecake from the tin, and you're good to go.

I'm freeee!

It was a dark day. Chocolate to the rescue!

The end result is very tasty. It could be more Oreo-y, maybe you could add some Oreos to the actual cheesecake mixture, but nevertheless good. The cocoa in the mixture does make it more chocolaty, although you do need the sugar to get the sweetness back up, otherwise it'll be pretty sour and bitter.
So Oreos, not just good for eating but for baking too. Obviously, I didn't do any 'real' baking for this one, just melting, so maybe I'll work out some other Oreo recipes that do involve the use of an oven in the future. But for now, we have Oreo cheesecake goodness.