I received complimentary Werther’s Originals Baking Caramels from MommyParties to facilitate this post. All opinions and recipes are my own.

This weekend was crazy busy here at our house! My brother and his wife are expecting their first baby at the end of December. They live in Maryland and we don’t see them as often as we’d like. Since most of our family lives up here in PA, we hosted a shower for them at our house on Saturday. Our family does showers a bit different. We don’t do the traditional all-girl events. We like to get everyone together for these events, so my mom hosts what she calls “Jack and Jill” showers.

With close to 30 people in the house, we had a ton of food! Of course, you can’t have a party without desserts, right? Well, in addition to the traditional cakes that my mom usually makes, I took this opportunity to get a few early arrivals together to have a Werther’s Originals Baking Caramel pre-party. We started with delicious Caramel Mocha Coffee before I made an amazing Chocolate Chip Caramel Cheesecake Pie. I am so thrilled with how well the pie came out because I pretty much winged it on the recipe!

Caramel Mocha Coffee with Werther’s Originals Baking Caramels

This is incredibly easy to make, so you can make it any time!

Ingredients (per cup):

• Two Werther’s Originals Baking Caramels
• Tablespoon of chocolate syrup
• Strong coffee
• Cream if desired
• Whipped cream if desired

Directions:

Remember in my Mocha Almond coffee post, I told you the key to making great flavored coffee is to add all the ingredients before you add your coffee? Well, that’s true here too.

• Cut the the two Werther’s Baking Caramels in smaller pieces and place in the bottom of your microwave-safe mug.
• Microwave on high for about 30 seconds.
• Squirt in your chocolate syrup, about 1 tablespoon worth
• Mix in your cream (and sugar, if you want it really sweet)
• Pour hot coffee over top. I use the Keurig for this step.
• Top with whipped cream and enjoy!

Now that everyone was appropriately caffeinated, it was time to make my pie! I am so proud of this chocolate chip caramel cheesecake pie. The only part that I used a recipe for was the cheesecake base. I used the same recipe that I did for my Pumpkin Swirl Cheesecake Recipe over at OurFamilyWorld.  The rest, I made up on my own!

Chocolate Chip Caramel Cheesecake Pie

Ingredients:

• Chocolate graham cracker crust (premade from store)
• 2 8-oz bricks of cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 of a 10-oz bag of chocolate chips
• 15 Werther’s Original Baking Caramels, unwrapped (obviously!)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Combine cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl and mix on high until creamy. I used my mom’s KitchenAid for this step and left it running while I unwrapped the caramels.
• Add in the eggs and continue to blend until creamy again.
• Mix in about 1/4 bag of chocolate chips (maybe 1/2 cup’s worth, just eyeball it until it looks like the chips are evenly distributed). Mix these in with a spoon.

• Set aside 1/4 cup of the mixture.
• Pour the rest of the mixture into the pie crust. Spread the rest of the chocolate chips over top the mixture, pressing lightly, until you have a nice layer of chocolate chips on top.
• Melt the caramels in a pot over LOW heat! Lower than you’d use for melting chocolate! This is where I almost went wrong, I started melting it at too high a heat and the caramel began to burn!
• Mix in the 1/4 cup of reserved mixture, stir until melted and creamy.
• Pour the melted caramels over top of your cheesecake.
• Swirl it in, pressing down a bit to make sure it seeps in here and there
• Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the middle is set.
• Cool on wire rack for 30 minutes, then chill until it’s nice and cool.

That’s it. It comes out delicious! The caramel forms a candy-like topping. I love how easy the Werther’s Original Baking Caramels are to work with. They’re even easy to unwrap! Want to find more amazing recipes to make with them? Visit Werther’s website. You’ll find recipes from Werther’s as well as other caramel lovers. Other exclusive content includes sweepstakes and coupons!