A Variety of Mini-Cheesecakes

A Variety of Mini-Cheesecakes

I made 60 mini-cheesecakes for a rehearsal dinner last week.  I did a trial run a few weeks before that with a raspberry swirl with chocolate crust.

I liked the base cheesecake recipe, and decided to use that for all five versions that I made, with slight variations.

I made 2 types with a graham cracker crust, and three with an Oreo crust.

The cheesecakes were:

Regular cheesecake with a graham cracker crust

Key Lime cheesecake with a graham cracker crust

Oreo cheesecake with an Oreo crust

Chocolate cheesecake with an Oreo crust

Raspberry swirl cheesecake with an Oreo crust

Oreo Crusts

1 1/2 cups Oreo Crumbs

4 T butter, melted

Stir together with a fork and put a rounded tablespoon in each cupcake well.  Flatten with the bottom of a 1/3 cup measure.

Bake 5 minutes at 350 Fahrenheit 

Graham Cracker Crusts

3/4 Cup plus 1 Tbsp Graham Cracker crumbs (about 7 full sheets)

2 T Sugar

3 1/2 T butter, melted

Stir together with a fork and put one rounded tablespoon in each cupcake well.  Flatten with the bottom of a 1/3 cup measure.

Bake 5 minutes at 325 Fahrenheit

Basic Cheesecake Filling

2 8 oz pkgs cream cheese, softened

1 T Flour

3/4 C sugar

2 large eggs

1/4 C sour cream

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp lemon zest

Beat the cream cheese at a low speed, add flour and mix, add sugar and mix.  Add eggs one at a time, then add the sour cream and vanilla, mixing after each addition.  Stir in the lemon zest.

For basic cheesecake, use a graham cracker crust.

Fill each cupcake well, not quite full.  Bake 22 minutes at 325 Fahrenheit.  Top may still look a little jiggly.  Cool at least 1 hour before refrigerating.

Raspberry Swirl Variation

Make one recipe of Oreo crust.

Make one recipe of Basic Cheesecake Filling

Raspberry Sauce

4 oz raspberries

2 T Sugar

Blend 30 seconds or so to make a sauce.  Press through a wire mesh strainer until only seeds remain, discard the seeds.  Place a tsp or so of sauce on top of chocolate crust in each well.  Spoon in basic cheesecake filling.  Using a pastry tip or condiment bottle, dot the top of each cheesecake with remaining raspberry sauce.  Drag a toothpick  through to create swirl design.

Follow baking instructions for basic cheesecake filling.

Key Lime Variation

Make the graham cracker crust.

Make the following alterations to basic cheesecake filling:

Reduce to 1 egg.

Add 3 Tbsp key lime juice

Replace lemon zest with 1 tsp lime zest

Add one drop green food color

Follow baking instructions for basic cheesecake filling

Chocolate Variation

Make the Oreo Crust

Make the following alterations to basic cheesecake filling:

Do not add lemon zest

Add 3 Tbsp Cocoa to the batter

Follow baking instructions for basic cheesecake filling.

Oreo Variation

Make the Oreo crust

Make the following alterations to basic cheesecake filling:

Do not add lemon zest

Add 1/4 Cup Oreo crumbs to filling batter

After adding the filling to the prebaked Oreo Crusts, either break up some Oreos into larger pieces and top the batter with them, or do what I did, buy the mini Oreos and use those for topping.

Follow the baking instructions for the basic cheesecake filling.

Here are the results of the night’s baking.

 

At the rehearsal dinner I added cherry topping to the basic mini-cheesecakes, and whipped cream to the chocolate and key lime mini-cheesecakes.  I added chocolate sprinkles for the chocolate ones.  The Oreo and Raspberry swirl cheesecakes didn’t need any more decoration

 



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