White Chocolate Cheesecake with Raspberry Swirl

My dear friend and neighbor J. invited us over for dinner Saturday night. My husband was immediately asking why she invited us, which honestly hadn't crossed my mind. I highly doubted she was going to ask us to sell Amway, but you never know... LOL Just kidding!

I asked what I could bring and she said dessert, and I just recently found this recipe for White Chocolate Cheesecake with Strawberry Swirl from Cuisine At Home, so I had to make it. Plus I had most of the ingredients already. I did make a few changes though; first, I had graham cracker crumbs so I used those instead of the chocolate wafer cookies, and second, raspberries were on sale and I already had raspberry jam so I used those instead of strawberries.

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WHITE CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE WITH STRAWBERRY SWIRL

Sauce:
10 oz. fresh strawberries, hulled, quartered
3 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. strawberry preserves
juice of 1/2 lemon (or 1 1/2 tbsp. lemon juice)
2 tbsp. water
2 tsp. cornstarch

Crust:
7 chocolate wafer cookies, crumbled
3 whole graham crackers, crumbled
2 tbsp. sugar
pinch salt
3 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted (I used salted butter and omitted the pinch of salt)

For The Cheesecake:
8 oz. white chocolate, chopped
3 - 8 oz. pkgs. cream cheese, room temp
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup cold strawberry sauce

Process berries, sugar, preserves, and lemon juice for the sauce in a food processor until smooth. (I used a small bowl and my immersion blender.) Transfer to a saucepan; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Combine water and cornstarch in a small bowl until smooth; whisk into berry mixture. Simmer to thicken slightly, about 1 minute. Transfer to a bowl, cover, and chill until cold.
Preheat oven to 300 degrees with rack in the center. Coat a 9 inch springform pan with cooking spray. (I forgot to and it was fine.) Process the cookies, crackers, sugar and salt for crust in a food processor until fine. Add butter as machine is running. (I mixed about 1 cup of graham cracker crumbs with 3 tbsp. melted butter and 2 tbsp. sugar with a fork.) Pat crumbs onto bottom of pan.
Melt white chocolate for the cheesecake over a double boiler and set aside. (I used the microwave) Blend cream cheese and sugar until smooth, using a mixer and scraping the sides of the bowl periodically. Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. Blend in melted chocolate, vanilla, and lemon juice. Pour batter over crust, then drizzle with 1/4 cup of sauce. Swirl sauce into batter to create a marbled pattern with a toothpick. Place pan on a baking sheet and bake until edges are set and puffed but center is still jiggly, 60-80 minutes. DO NOT over bake. Turn off oven, crack door open with a wooden spoon, an cool cake in the oven for 1 hour. Remove from oven and cool completely. Cover cake with a towel and chill overnight. Serve with remaining sauce.
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This cake was SO delicious. There are a lot of ingredients and directions, but it wasn't hard to make.

Happy eating!