Amaretto cheesecake

For a chocolate crust, substitute 2 cups very finely curshed chocolate sandwich cookies with white filling for the vanilla wafers and omit the 1/4 cup sugar in the crust.

1 cup lightly salted butter
2 cups very finely crushed vanilla wafers
1 3/4 cup sugar, divided
3 oz German sweet baking chocolate, melted
4 Tbsp Amaretto, divided
1 Tbsp light rum
Dash salt
4 eggs, room temperature
1/4 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups dairy sour cream

1. For crust, in a 1-qt saucepan, melt butter or margarine. Remove from heat and stir in crushed vanilla wafers and 1/4 cup of the sugar. Press mixture onto the bottom and about 2 inches up the sides of a 10-inch springform pan; set aside.

2. Preheat the oven to 350. For filling, in a large bowl, beat cream cheese, 1 1/4 cups fo the remaining sugar, melted chocolate, 2 tablespoons of the Amaretto, light rum, and salt with an electric mixer until smooth. Add eggs. Beat on low speed just until combined. Stir in chocolate pieces. Pour filling into the crust-lined pan. Bake cheesecake on a shallow baking pan for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand for 10 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, for topping, in a medium bowl stir together sour cream, the remaining 1/4 cup sugar, and the remaining 2 tablespoons amaretto. Carefully spread topping over cheesecake. Return cheesecake to the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Cool in pan for 15 minutes. Loosen crust from sides of pan. Cool for 30 minutes more. Remove sides of pan and cool for 4 hours. Cover and chill until serving time.

4. Garnish with miniature chocolate chips when serving.

Serves 12-16.