Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

I love this cheesecake! We found a deal on cream cheese, and bought 30 pounds of it. After trying a number of cheesecake variations (the best way to use up cream cheese), this one was definitely my favorite.

Ingredients:

   1 cup cookie or graham cracker crumbs

   1/3 cup white sugar

   1/3 cup cocoa powder

   1/3 cup butter, melted

   24 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

   1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk

   3 eggs

   2 tsp. vanilla extract

   1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

   1 tsp. flour

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
2. To make the crust, mix cookie crumbs (I usually use ladyfingers), white sugar, and cocoa powder with a fork until mixed well. Use fork to mix melted butter into cookie crumb mixture. Press mixture evenly into bottom of 9-inch springform pan.
3. To make the filling, beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually add sweetened condensed milk, mixing well. Add vanilla extract and eggs and mix until smooth. 
4. To add chocolate chips, toss 1/3 of chocolate chips with flour in a separate bowl, and then mix the chocolate chip/flour mixture into the filling. This will keep the chocolate chips from sinking to the bottom. 
5. Pour filling into pan, and sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips on top of the cheesecake. 
6. To keep cheesecake from splitting, set a pan of boiling water on the bottom rack of oven before putting cheesecake in oven. 
7. Bake cheesecake on a middle oven rack for about an hour, and then turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake in the oven for another hour. 
8. Refrigerate cheesecake at least four hours before removing sides of pan.