Mini Cheesecakes

     These last few weeks, I've been working on planning my cousin's baby shower.  We ended up doing a Minnie and Mickey mouse themed shower and I thought, perfect!  Minnie (mini) cheesecakes!!

I have this really easy cheesecake recipe that I've wanted to try and didn't have a reason to.  Since it was Valentine's day a few days ago, there are more than enough goodies in our house as is!

I got home from work and this amazing surprise was waiting for me! I have a wonderful boyfriend :)

     Anyway, on to the cheesecake!

Ingredients:

Crust:

2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup oleo, melted

Filling:

3 (8oz.) cream cheese

1 cup sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

OPTIONAL: fruit preserves (I used strawberry and raspberry)

     First, preheat your oven to 350°.  For the crust you just mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and it will end out like this:

     The filling is just as simple, mix everything together until it's well combined:

     At this point, if you want to just make one cheesecake, you would pat the graham cracker crust down into a 9x13 pan.  Once the crust is flattened, pour the filling over top.  Bake at 350 for 30 min or until the center is set (it will probably crack a bit in the center, that's how I always know it's done)

     **I baked my mini cheesecakes for 18-20 minutes, so the 9x13 will probably have to go longer than 30 minutes**

     Here I put cupcake liners in my mini cupcake pans and filled them about halfway with the crust.

before being pressed down

after being pressed down

   

     After being pressed down, the crust came maybe about 1/3 of the way up the cupcake liners.  I then filled each of them about 3/4 of the way full with the filling.

     When I finished filling all 72 of the cupcake liners, I had finished the filling and had some of the crust left over.  I baked the pans for 18-20 minutes.

yum!!

     I left them in the pans for about 5 minutes and then took them out and put them on a cooling rack.  After the cheesecakes were cool (about 15 minutes total), I used a decorating bag and tip to fill the centers with fruit preserves.

 

     I piped the preserves into the center like this:

     Once the cheesecakes were full of preserves, the tops began puffing up a bit.  As soon as they puffed up, I stopped filling them.  I used strawberry in some of the cheesecakes, raspberry in others, and some I left plain.  They were sooo yummy!!!

Aren't they cute?! Somehow it seems that mini anything is cuter than the original!

Happy baking friends!

    -Katie