Wednesday, September 23, 2009

For the love of cheesecake

We are big cheesecake lovers in our house...Every celebration is a great excuse to make a cheesecake. My husband loves all different variation of it, from original to chocolate to any other imaginable combination...that being said, we always end up with leftovers and most of the time we end up throwing it away or worse...I end up having a desert everyday for couple of weeks. Neither one of these options is great, so I decided to take matters in my own hands and find a way to still satisfy the cravings for cheesecake but not having tons of leftovers.

Few months ago, Williams-Sonoma had their semi-annual sale, and of course I went a little crazy. One thing that I was very excited to find was mini cheesecake pans. I thought if I can make a bite size pieces of cheesecake, I can freeze them, so we can have it whenever we feel like it. The pan by the way is a BRILLIANT invention! You can use it not only for cheesecakes, but tea cakes, even individual potato gratins.



So, after months of anticipation I decided to take a plunge and make a batch of those tasty little morsels. I've made an original recipe cheesecake but dressed it up by covering one is chocolate ganache, another by adding some strawberries and adding sugar topping to the next, my take on creme brulee cheesecake. The recipe is very simple and easy to prepare, they also bake very fast because of their size.




For the crust:

1 cup of cookie crumbs
2 TBSP of sugar
Pinch of salt
2 TBSP of butter, melted

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix till combined. Divided the crust mixture among the 12 cups and press it to the bottom of the mold. Bake @ 300'F for 10 minutes.

For the filling:

16 oz of cream cheese soften
2 Eggs
1/2 cup of heavy cream
1/2 of sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tsp of vanilla extract

In the bowl of electric mixer, beat together cream cheese and sugar and cream until smooth, add eggs one at the time, followed by heavy cream and salt and vanilla. Pour the batter into the crust, dividing it evenly among the cups. Bake until the cheesecakes are just set, about 20 minutes. Let it cool completely before un-molding and then cool in a fridge for 2 hours more.

13 comments:

  1. Thanks for your kind sharing, I dont have mini cheesecake pan like you, maybe I can use muffin mould to bake this mini cheesecake.

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  2. Sonia, you could use muffin pan, but you might have trouble taking it out as muffin pan does not have a removable bottom.

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  3. I like this cute little cheesecake. Can I just pop one into my mouth? :D

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  4. Oh I see, maybe I should line paper on the bottom, do you think this way work?

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  5. Great idea to use cheesecake pan to make cheesecake! It helps to control how much cheesecakes I could eat :)

    Your cheesecakes sound delicious. Thanks for sharing :)

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  6. I'm so jealous of your beautiful pan! Wish I'd seen the sale too! I may have to put it on my Christmas list. Your cheesecakes sound perfect!

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  7. Awesome! We bought one of these about a week ago, and its so amazing =D. Thanks for the ideas of what else to use it for!!

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  8. Those little cheesecakes are so cute!! Perfect for a party! Now I want that pan! Love the idea of making mini potato gratins in them!

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  9. Sonia, you could use paper muffin liners.

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  10. So beautifully presented! Looks so elegant and delicious!

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  11. cute little yummy cheese cake!! :D We have 2 moulds like this at home! will try your recipe very soon!! thanks! :D

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