Need a dessert in a hurry or one with little to no time or work required? Pick up a plain cheesecake or two and top it yourself! Here are 10 Cheesecake Toppings Ideas. From fruit toppings for a cheesecake to chocolate and caramel, you'll find one that works for you!
Throwing a party, hosting a dinner or Sunday dinner usually calls for dessert. We can only do so much, right!?
You have enough to pull-together when entertaining so, you could certainly make Grandma's Old Fashioned Apple Pie Recipe or a Key Lime Pie. However, instead of making a dessert from scratch, why not pick up a store-bought cheesecake or two and add your own toppings?
Choose one of these Cheesecake Toppings for a whole cheesecake or slice up a cheesecake or two and set our a few toppings for people to choose from or pick a few, slice your cheesecake up and top away. Setting out a ready made selection on a platter for your guests.
Table of Contents
10 Cheesecake Topping Ideas
Chocolate! Melt 1-2 cups of chocolate chips, place the melted chocolate into a piping bag (or snip off one corner of a baggie) and make a lattice design. Place Whopper candies (malted milk balls) in a circular design. It makes for a striking presentation!
Drizzle melted caramel and chocolate over-top the cheesecake in a crisscross pattern. Sprinkle a handful of chopped pecans on top and you now have a “Turtle” Cheesecake! See my recipe for homemade Turtle Cheesecake.
Caramel!! Simply smooth a layer of homemade or store-bought over-top your cheesecake, mmmmm! You can add a chopped nuts in a design to the caramel as well if you wish.
Fruit topping for cheesecake ideas
Pictured at the top of this post, Blueberry compote topping for cheesecake. So decadent and pretty AND so easy to make! (Compote recipe below in recipe card). Cheesecake Fruit Toppings are easy and look beautiful!
Top your cheesecake with fresh fruit – Simply scatter your chosen fruit(s) on top of the cheesecake, whole or sliced. If you want to get fancy, you can make a design with multiple varieties of fruit. The better the fruit the better the flavor. A fruit topping for cheesecake always works.
I have topped cheesecake with sautéed spiced apples in fall (delicious) as well as made mini cheesecakes with mini caramel apples on a stick on top, super fun!
Make a peach cobbler cheesecake by topping a cheesecake with sautéed spiced peaches, YUM! The ideas are many when it comes to fruit topping for a cheesecake.
Top your cheesecake with strawberry puree. You can make strawberry puree in minutes, all you need to do is add a little sugar to fresh strawberries, cook it down in a small pot till tender. Cool and puree. OR you can but a can of cherries, strawberries, peaches etc. from the baking aisle and use that as well. Garnish with mint sprigs for extra flair.
Top with candy. Spread a layer of whipped cream on top of the cheesecake and scatter chopped peanut butter cups, Heath Bars, Snickers or your favorite chocolate candy bar over-top. Yum!
Black & White Chocolate Shavings. Use a potato peeler, shave a milk or dark chocolate bar over-top and then shave part of a white chocolate bar over-top for a pretty presentation.
Stud the cheesecake with whipped cream stuffed strawberries. Hollow out 2 dozen strawberries and fill them with whipped cream. Use drops of melted chocolate to adhere them to the cheesecake. So pretty!
Crushed Oreo Cookies, or better yet, Thin Mint Cookie with chocolate syrup drizzled over-top!
Bonus: Top your cheesecake with chocolate dipped strawberries. And if your really pinched for time, you can even most likley pick those up from your grocer (in summer anyway).
Desserts remind me of days spent with the family. Why not have your kids (any age really) help to prep the dessert next time you are baking or cooking. Maybe have your tween take the lead.
Encouraging your kids to cook, at any age, fosters confidence and competence in the kitchen. Cooking is a life skill that we can easily give them at home. So why not give them a leg up as early as you can.
Hope you try these ideas for cheesecake toppings out and enjoy them!
XO Colleen
Since I am not a registered dietitian or nutritionist, so for nutritional calculations, I use a WordPress plug in. The numbers in this recipe are for the blueberry compote topping only.
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Colleen Kennedy is the author of 3 cookbooks and has appeared on QVC and other shows inspiring home cooks of all levels. She has a popular TikTok channel @ColleensCooking with hundreds of short recipe videos. Colleen lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and kids, she started the food blog, Soufflé Bombay in 2009. Read more about her here.
10 Cheesecake Toppings Blueberry Compote
Ingredients
- 2 pounds blueberries
- ⅓ cup water
- 1 TBS freshly squeezed lemon juice
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- A couple dashes cinnamon (optional) and if you have it a pinch of cardamom
- Lemon zest for garnish
Instructions
- In a medium saucepan, combine blueberries, water, lemon juice, sugar and spices (if using).
- Heat over medium heat until berries begin to burst and juice starts to thicken about 5 minutes.
- Remove a few spoonfuls of juice and in a tiny bowl mix that together with the cornstarch, then add it back to the berry mixture, allow it to bubble for a couple minutes, remove from heat.,
- Allow the compote to cool (unless you wish to serve warm... not hot.)
- When ready to serve your cheesecake, spoon the compote over-top (make a bit of a mound.) Garnish with lemon zest and or lemon triangles or halves and enjoy!!
Rebecca Gardner says
I love your suggestion to add a layer of whipped cream and then sprinkle the cheesecake with chopped pieces of our favorite candy. My daughter loves cheesecake, so I was thinking about finding a local dessert shop where I can buy one for her birthday dinner at the end of this month. Adding her favorite candy would help make the cake whimsical and fun as well, so thanks for sharing that tip!
Colleen says
Have fun jazzing up the cheesecake! Happy Birthday to your daughter!