Strawberry Crunch Cheesecake: Inspired by strawberry crunch ice cream bars like Scooter Crunch, this cheesecake has a sweet, crunchy, delicious crumble topping that sets it apart from other cheesecakes!
You will also absolutely LOVE these cheesecake filled strawberries and this strawberry cream cheese, cake!
Why You’ll Love This Strawberry Crunch Cheesecake Recipe
If strawberry crunch was your favorite ice cream bar growing up, you will love this cheesecake. This dessert combines creamy cheesecake goodness with the nostalgic crunch and flavor of those ice cream bars (and when you can have two of your favorite things in one, that’s a win)!
We know that making a baked cheesecake can be intimidating and takes a bit of time, but we also know you can do it!
If you do want to start with a no-bake cheesecake and build up to this one, check out our easy no-bake s’mores cheesecake or no-bake Oreo cheesecake.
Just be sure to come back and give this one a try after!
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Ingredients
The first step you need to take is to gather up all of your ingredients. You’ll need:
- 4 – 8 oz blocks of cream cheese, room temperature
- 4 large eggs
- ½ cup sour cream
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 ½ cups vanilla wafer cookies*, finely crumbled
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
- 1 tablespoon strawberry Jell-O powder
- ⅓ cup strawberry preserves
- 1 ½ vanilla wafer cookies*, roughly crumbled
- 9″ springform cheesecake pan
*for the substitutions: you can use golden Oreos instead of vanilla wafers
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and fill a cookie sheet with ¼ inch of water. Spray just the bottom of a 9″ springform pan with cooking spray (otherwise your cheesecake crust may stick to the pan).
- In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, whip all 32 ounces cream cheese until it is soft and smooth. This will take 3-5 minutes depending on the temperature of your cream cheese.
- Next, add in the 4 eggs, ½ cup sour cream, and ½ teaspoon vanilla extract and whisk until the ingredients are well combined and smooth.
- Then, add in the cup of sugar and whisk again until it is fully incorporate into the cheesecake batter.
How to Make Cheesecake Crust
- In a separate mixing bowl, combine the melted butter and the finely crumbled vanilla wafers (or golden Oreo cookie crumbles) until a sandy mixture forms.
- Spread the cookie mixture into the bottom of a 9-inch spring form pan. Use a cup to press the crust down firmly.
- Pour the cream cheese filling on top of the vanilla wafer crust (or golden Oreo crust) and place the springform pan onto your baking sheet that has ¼ inch of water in it.
Pro Tip: Place some aluminum foil under the bottom of the springform pan and up the edges a little bit to help keep the water from seeping into the pan while you bake strawberry cheesecake.
- Bake the cheesecake for 50 minutes (or until the middle is only slightly jiggly).
- Allow the cheesecake to cool for 1 hour on the counter and then allow it to cool for another hour in the fridge.
- Once the cheesecake has cooled, prepare your strawberry topping by combining the strawberry preserves, strawberry powder, and the course crumbs of either your vanilla wafer or golden Oreo cookies.
- Sprinkle the crumble over the top of the cake, serve, and enjoy your delicious dessert!
Substitutions
Here are a few ways you can substitute the ingredients called for in this recipe…
- Vanilla Wafers – You could crumble up golden Oreo cookies instead! Use a food processor (if you have one) to create fine crumbs for the crust and course crumbs for the topping. You could also use graham crumbs (or food process some graham crackers) instead of vanilla wafers to create a more traditional graham cracker crust.
- Sour Cream -If you are out of sour cream, you could substitute greek yogurt in its place.
- Strawberry Preserves – You can mash fresh strawberries until you have ⅓ cup or strawberry puree in place of the strawberry preserves. This will make the topping less sweet as preserves are made with a lot of sugar (but will still give you the natural sweet strawberry flavor).
Variations
This is a strawberry crunch cheesecake, but you could easily swap the strawberry preserves and strawberry gelatin powder out for another fruit!
- Raspberry – use raspberry Jell-O powder and preserves
- Peach – use peach Jell-O powder and peach preserves
- Orange – use orange Jell-O powder and orange marmalade instead of preserves
…you get the idea, right? There are so many options!
Equipment
For this recipe, you will need a springform pan. You can find these at most big box stores or baking stores or online here.
Storage
If you do have leftovers, cover the top of the springform pan in plastic wrap and store this cheesecake in an airtight container in the fridge. This will help keep your cheesecake fresh and help it last up to one week.
If you want to enjoy your cheesecake at room temperature later, just let it warm up on the counter before eating.
Expert Tips and FAQs
Baking a cheesecake can be tricky. It’s easy to overbake or underbake this delicious dessert. In order to ensure it is fully baked when you take it out of the oven, give your spring form pan a slight jiggle. If the middle of the cheesecake moves more than a tiny bit, you will want to leave it in a little longer. If it does not move at all, you know the cheesecake is over-baked. You want the middle of the cheesecake to jiggle slightly.
The strawberry topping for cheesecake (the best part, in our opinion) is made by combining strawberry preserves, Jell-O powder, and the roughly chopped cookies. You simply sprinkle this crumble over the top of your baked cheesecake, serve it, and enjoy!
If you plan to make cheesecake regularly, we would highly recommend getting a springform pan. Springform pans open up so you can remove the sides of the pan from the cheesecake and off of the base, making it SO easy to cut and serve your cheesecake.
If you don’t have one and don’t plan to get one, you can find tutorials online for baking cheesecake in a regular cake pan (like this one).
Preserves are made with chopped up fruit instead of just the fruit juice, but many people make jam this way too. For this recipe, look for a jam that is thick and has seeds still in it (meaning it was made with whole fruit and not just juice).
Although they sound the same, these are actually slightly different things. This cheesecake (strawberry crunch) has a cheesecake filling and a crunchy strawberry topping on top of the cheesecake.
A strawberry shortcake cheesecake cake would have layers of shortcake in it in addition to the cheesecake. Both of these sweet treats make a delicious strawberry cake, it just depends on what you are looking for (crunch or cake).
Related Recipes
If you enjoyed this recipe, try our other strawberry desserts like this easy strawberry crumble or strawberry cheesecake cookies! Or, if hosting a party, this fun walking cheesecake dessert is so fun!
Recipe
Strawberry Crunch Cheesecake
Equipment
- 9" springform pan
Ingredients
- 4 – 8 ounce blocks of cream cheese room temperature
- 4 large eggs
- ½ cup sour cream
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 ½ cups vanilla wafer cookies* finely crumbled
- ½ cup unsalted butter melted
- 1 tablespoon strawberry Jell-O powder
- ⅓ cup strawberry preserves
- 1 ½ vanilla wafer cookies* roughly crumbled
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and fill a cookie sheet with ¼ inch of water. Spray just the bottom of a 9" springform pan with cooking spray (otherwise your cheesecake crust may stick to the pan).
- In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, whip all 32 ounces cream cheese until it is soft and smooth (if using a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment and start on a low speed, slowly moving to high speed). This will take 3-5 minutes depending on the temperature of your cream cheese.
- Add in the 4 eggs, ½ cup sour cream, and ½ teaspoon vanilla extract and whisk until the ingredients are well combined and smooth.
- Add in the cup of sugar and whisk again until it is fully incorporate into the cheesecake batter.
- In a separate mixing bowl, combine the melted butter and the finely crumbled vanilla wafers (or golden Oreo cookie crumbles) until a sandy mixture forms.
- Spread the cookie mixture into the bottom of a 9-inch spring form pan. Use a cup to press the crust down firmly.
- Pour the cream cheese filling on top of the vanilla wafer crust (or golden Oreo crust) and place the springform pan onto your baking sheet that has ¼ inch of water in it.Tip: Place some aluminum foil under the bottom of the springform pan and up the edges a little bit to help keep the water from seeping into the pan while you bake strawberry cheesecake.
- Bake the cheesecake for 50 minutes (or until the middle is only slightly jiggly).
- Allow the cheesecake to cool for 1 hour on the counter and then allow it to cool for another hour in the fridge.
- Once the cheesecake has cooled, prepare your strawberry topping by combining the strawberry preserves, strawberry powder, and the course crumbs of either your vanilla wafer or golden Oreo cookies.
- Sprinkle the crumble over the top of the cake, serve, and enjoy your delicious dessert!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary with brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
Olivia says
Love this cheesecake! I couldn’t get over how incredible the crumble topping tasted, thank you for sharing!
Anna says
I made this cheesecake for our neighbor’s birthday and she absolutely loved it! It was so fun to make it! Thank you for the recipe!
Jamie says
Loved this strawberry cheesecake! So fresh and delicious!!