Banana Cheesecake

Recently I had a piece of Banana Cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory when I went to visit Washington DC and this recipe reminds me a lot of that.







Crust:

1 and 1/2 cups crushed vanilla cream sandwich cookies

1/4 cup melted butter

Combine melted butter and crushed cookies crumb. Press into the bottom of a greased 9" spring form pan and refrigerate.

Filling:

4 (8 ounce) packages of cream cheese, softened

2/3 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3 eggs at room temperature

1 cup cup mashed ripe bananas

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

2 teaspoons vanilla

Topping:

Additional sliced bananas

Whipped topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Blend in the sugar and cornstarch then add the eggs one at a time and blend well after each addition. Next blend in the mashed bananas, whipping cream and vanilla. Pour this into the prepared crust.

Place the pan on a cookie sheet and bake in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. Decrease the oven temperature to 200 degrees and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes more or until almost set.

Remove the cake from the oven and loosen the cake from the edges of the pan with a sharp knife but don't remove the rim. Cool completely then refrigerate for at least 6 hours.

Remove the rim of the pan and garnish with slided bananas and whipped topping if desired before serving.

Serves 14.

Banana Cheesecake-->Fruit Cheesecakes