Friday, June 27, 2008
white chocolate-raspberry covered miniature cheesecakes
i've been wanting a mini cheesecake pan for awhile now and finally bought one from king arthur flour. since receiving it in the mail, i've been waiting for an opportunity to make a batch (no, sitting at home watching movies does not count as an "opportunity"). when we were invited to our friends' house for dinner i thought of my lonely, unused pan and offered to bring dessert.
mah brand new mini cheesecake pan
if you haven't seen one of these before, it's just so smart. the pan makes 12 cheesecakes and each spot has a hole and a disc to cover said hole. when they're done, you poke from the bottom of the pan and out pops a perfect, 3 bite piece of cheesecake. the box came with a recipe, but i only half trusted it because it involved a can of cherry pie filling (have i mentioned before that this is disgusting?)...so i went online and found something better.
mini cheesecakes (from bake or break)
6 tbsp butter, melted
1 1/2 cups graham crackers
1/2 cup sugar (divided)
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1. pulse graham crackers in a food processor until a fine crumb
2. mix together melted butter, graham cracker crumbs and 1/4 c of sugar
3. press about 1 1/2 tbsp into bottom and sides of a greased mini cheesecake pan (1/2-3/4 up the sides)
4. in a new bowl, mix cream cheese, 1/4 c sugar, egg, and vanilla until blended
5. pour batter on top of crusts and bake at 350F for 12-14 minutes
the crust was a little harder to do than i expected. making it was a breeze, obviously, but trying to pat it up the sides and on the bottom evenly was difficult. when i was pressing, my fingers kept jabbing into already pressed crusts, causing them to crumble back to the middle into loose piles. i gave up on perfection and opted for an appealing roughness to the edges.
the filling was nice and simple, but i thought i didn't have quite enough. even though i scraped the bowl clean to fill the pan, none of the cakes were full. but i was wrong. they puffed up quite nicely and then settled into adorable little cheesecakes once cooled.
see? we turned out just right!
um, could it get any simpler?
to finish these guys off, i used bake or break's basic white chocolate-raspberry topping. 1 oz melted white chocolate for 1 tbsp raspberry preserves. i made 3 oz/tbsp worth and it was more than enough for 12 cakes. it was quick and easy to "drizzle" (it's not liquid-y, so you have to gently spoon it on) over the top.
topped with some shaved white chocolate, these cuties were perfect for dessert treats.
shiny, sweet glaze over rich, creamy cheesecake!
everyone really loved these and agreed that the cheesecake filling was perfect. it's a great base to top with any number of goodies (husband of course requested chocolate) or to switch up the basic flavor (i was thinking about adding citrus zest). the crust was good, but paired with the white choc-rasp topping, it was sweet overload. i think i may have been a little too generous with the glaze and could have also decreased the sugar by just a tiny bit in the crust.
in all, we agreed that they were great and were mostly just excited to test out new flavor combinations. i'm thinking chocolate crust and turtle topping next time!!
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2 comments:
They look so yummy. In the first picture I thought they were all fatty and fried, but then at the end when you show the graham crust, I was totally sold. Congrats on the cuteness!
They look absolutely delicious! I am on a diet now, but I can dream.
RP
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