This holiday season, don’t stress about what to serve. The Classic Catering People of Owings Mills has come up with the perfect dessert to impress your guests.

This festive cheesecake looks as good as it tastes. And the best part about creating your own is the endless cookie crust and color combinations that can be used.

Really, this dessert can be served year round and swirled to match any theme, season or holiday.

For Valentines, try a graham cracker crust swirled with pink and red or for Independence Day, try a chocolate chip cookie crust with blue and red swirls!

For that little something extra, Classic Catering suggests topping the cheesecake with crushed candy canes or drizzle it with peppermint liquor.

Here's the recipe, from chef Kevin Scheuing:

Holiday Swirl Cheesecake

Serves 10-12

Ingredients

1 pound & 2 ounces sugar

3 ounces butter

3 pounds or 12 ounces cream cheese

5 ounces sour cream

9 eggs

4 ounces heavy cream

1 ounce vanilla

red and green food coloring

crushed chocolate cookies

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Cream together butter, cream cheese and sugar.
3.  Add half of the eggs and mix; be sure to scrape down the edges of the bowl. Add the remainder of the eggs and mix well. Scrape down the edges of the bowl as you are mixing to incorporate batter completely.
4. Add heavy cream and sour cream. Mix well to incorporate, and then add vanilla.
5. After batter is mixed completely, reserve 2 small bowls of the batter.
6. With the reserved batter, add red food coloring to one bowl and green food coloring to the other. Mix each bowl until well incorporated. Meanwhile, boil a saucepan of water.
7. Spray a round cake pan with nonstick spray. Cover the bottom of the pan with crushed chocolate cookies and press firmly. Add plain cheesecake batter. Top with red and green cheesecake batter, swirling together. Smooth top with a spatula.
8. Set the pan on a large piece of aluminum foil and fold up the sides around it. Place the cake pan in a large roasting pan and pour boiling water into the roasting pan until the water is about halfway up the sides of the cake pan. The foil will keep the water from seeping into the cheesecake. Bake 45-50 minutes until firm, but has a slight jiggle.
9. Let cool in pan for 30 minutes, then chill in refrigerator, loosely covered for a minimum of 4 hours.

Editor's Note: The author of this post is co-owner of The Classic Catering People.