Mini Cheesecakes

I have a bit of a cheesecake obsession. I'm always looking for a new one. Recently I've had a couple occasions (excuses) to make some mini cheesecakes. These are my favourite. Since they're rich you can split one, but if you have a whole one its not so bad...

The first one, with berries on top was for meeting my boyfriends Mom, around her birthday. I hoped it would help me out a little.. AND it did :)

The second one was to celebrate a nice raise at work. Who doesn't deserve cheesecake??

I have a mini cheesecake pan that makes 6 cheesecakes. I always follow the recipe on the pan pretty closely for amounts, but I'm pretty sure a 9-10" cheesecake would make the same amount. The saddest part about this post is that Williams Sonoma no longer carries this pan. I'm sure you can find something like it somewhere though. Bed bath and beyond always has fun pans!

Here's the recipe and then another one I modified a bit to make chocolate swirl cheesecakes. I always use either all light cream cheese or at least half light and half regular.


Recipes:

Crust:
5 TBSP Butter, Melted
8 Graham Crackers (140g), Crumbled
2 TBSP Sugar

Filling:
500 G Cream Cheese, cut into cubes - Room Temp
3/4 Cup Sugar
1.5 TSP Salt
2/3 Cup Cream
2 Eggs

Set oven to 325F

- Pulse crust ingredients in food processor until it starts to stick together.
- Divide evenly among Cakes
- The recipe said to use your fingers but I found that the bottom of glass worked perfectly
- Pre bake the crusts for about 10 minutes or until set.

Lower the Oven Temp to 300F

- The recipe suggests using a food processor to cream all the ingredients together, this or a mixer will work fine!
- Mix the cream cheese first until smooth, then add the other ingredients.
- Mix till well blended.
- Divide the filling between the cakes, about 2/3 cup in each

- Bake the cheesecakes until the edges are set but the middle is still slightly wobbly. 48 - 52 minutes.
- I don't have a convention oven, I found they took about 55 - 60 minutes
- Transfer to a wire rack (still in pan) and let cool for 2 hours.
- Push cheesecakes out of pan and remove from disks. Transfer to parchment lined sheet and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, or up to 2 days.

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The things I changed the second time:

- I used Oreo crumbs
- I used all light cream cheese (I usually use half light and half full fat)
- 1% Milk instead of cream
- I melted 1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips and added it to half of the cream cheese mixture
- I poured the chocolate on first, the regular cheese mixture on top
- I attempted swirling with a wooden skewer

- I also used a water bath, a brownie pan filled 3/4 with water in the over at the same time.
- I left the cheesecakes in the oven after it was off for about an hour

These were the best looking cheesecakes I ever made, they didn't crack or fall at all.

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My cheesecakes have a tendency to fall and crack without a waterbath so I covered these with berries and made a chocolate drizzle.They were well loved... And no one saw the cracks!

 

My Chocolate swirl cheesecakes didn't quite swirl, I was afraid I'd disrupt the bottoms. But they still turned out great. They had a waterbath, well a brownie pan underneath.