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 toothpaste through to create swirl design.
Follow baking instructs 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.
Labels: Dessert