Cheesecake Cupcakes

Cheesecake just so happens to be Tony and Andy’s favorite kind of cake, so they were super excited when I told them I’d be attempting cheesecake cupcakes. I stumbled upon this recipe (1) a while ago but hadn’t really had the time to make it till last night when we had some left over curry for dinner. These little guys are delicious. They are light and fluffy right out of the oven, but give them the time to set in the fridge overnight and they become firm, smooth, and absolutely decadent. I whipped up some whip cream (because I’m the kind of girl who can do that on a whim) and plopped a bit on top with some shaved chocolate for garnish. Divine.

First make sure that you have 16 ounces of cream cheese and two eggs out at room temperature. It makes the mixing later on way easier. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. To make the crust, I crushed about 25 graham cracker squares by mortar and pestle to make 2 cups of graham cracker crumbs. I suppose I could have used my food processor, but I like to access my cave woman roots every now and then.

In a small bowl, combine the crumbs with 4 ~ 5 tablespoons of melted butter. I needed more to make the mixture packable. At this point I started nibbling away at my mix and needed to get a glass of milk. :)

In another bowl combine 16 ou cream cheese, 3/4 c granulated sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract, and 2 eggs. Using a hand mixer, beat the tar out of it till your mixture is nice and smooth and kind of fluffy. I never did get mine TOTALLY smooth, but the cupcakes turned out fine. It’s amazing how baked goods just come together when coaxed by a bit of heat in the oven. Still nibbling away because raw eggs don’t scare me in the least.

Line a cupcake tray with paper cupcake liners. Place a tablespoon of the crumb mixture into each paper cupcake holder and press down gently with a spoon. Fill each cupcake just about to the top with the cream cheese mixture. I had enough mix to make about 15 cupcakes in total. The original recipe said to bake these in the oven for 15 minutes. I baked one tray for 25 minutes and another smaller one for 20 minutes. Both turned out fine, but I probably over cooked them a bit because I was nervous and didn’t know how to assess the doneness of cheesecake. The toothpick trick didn’t work and they seemed too wobbly… I don’t know. I finally decided that when they were all pretty cracked and poofy, I should take them out. 20 minutes should be fine.

While the cupcakes were baking I introduced Nicky to the wonderful world of cream cheese. Kittens are so much fun.

Because these cupcakes depend solely on eggs to give them rise, they kind of deflate upon exiting the oven. That’s cool. It just means they need to be filled. :) I love whipped cream, so I put a dollop of that on top of mine. You could also put some fresh fruit on there, canned pie mix, chocolate candies, jam, nutella, swedish fish… ;) The sky’s the limit. Have fun!

Cheesecake Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 2 cups of crushed graham crackers
• 4 ~ 5 tablespoons of butter, melted
• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese (room temperature)
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs (room temperature)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• your topping of choice

Method

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cupcake tray with cupcake liners.

2) Crush the graham crackers and mix with butter. Place 1 tablespoon of this mixture in each cupcake liner, and press down with a spoon to make the crust.

3) In a mixing bowl, beat room temperature cream cheese, sugar, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy.

4) Fill each cupcake liner with the cream cheese mixture, just about to the top.

5) Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.

6) Top with a teaspoonful of your topping of choice.

(1) http://www.nibbledish.com/people/legallyliz/recipes/cheesecake-cupcake