I don’t even know what to say about this recipe. How about I start with… It’s Delicious!!!! But I don’t even think that covers it. It’s beyond delicious. What’s that word? Freaking awesome?
The mini cheesecakes are amazing and then topped with our homemade Caramel Sauce and then sprinkled with course sea salt? Holy heck! I could have eaten 4 in one sitting. Let’s just say I didn’t… for appearances sake.
I actually made the cheesecake part of the recipe gluten free. I was going to a potluck at work. It was the last day of work and all the counselors in the district were getting together to talk about our Flight Team. (That’s the team that is called in when there is a tragedy/accident/disaster.) It’s always fun to get together with the other counselors and exchange stories and get advice and debrief, but the topic for the day was a tough one. Our little town has experienced some major tragedies this past school year. And desserts make everything just a little better, right? Oh come on, a little bit, right?
One of the counselors in the district is gluten free and because I think she’s so amazing, I wanted to make sure she got a treat too. So I made a couple of mini cheesecakes without the crust and exchanged the 3 Tbsp. of flour in the recipe with gluten free flour. It was easy and they tasted wonderful. And an added bonus, she loved that she was able to eat dessert too.
Anyways, on to the recipe…
Don’t they look wonderful? And mini. Enough said, right?
I should have doubled this recipe so I could have put some in the freezer for later. They were that good.
Thank you to Cooking Classy for this recipe. It is delicious!
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups finely crushed graham crackers (from about 18 sheets)
- 3 Tbsp. sugar
- 7 Tbsp. salted butter, melted
- 4 (8 oz) pkg. cream cheese, softened
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour (I used gluten free)
- 4 large eggs
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- Salted Caramel Sauce
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together crushed graham crackers with 3 Tbsp. sugar. Pour in melted butter and stir mixture until evenly coated. Divide graham cracker mixture among 24 paper lined muffin cups, adding about a heaping Tbsp. to each. Press mixture into an even layer. Bake in preheated oven 5 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool while preparing filling.
- In a small mixing bowl, whisk together 1 1/2 cups sugar with 3 Tbsp. flour until well blended.
- In another mixing bowl, add softened cream cheese and pour sugar mixture over top. Blend mixture on low speed until smooth. Mix in eggs one at a time and blend on low speed, while scrapping sides and bottom of bowl and mixing just until combined after each addition. Add vanilla, sour cream and heavy cream and mix just until combined. Tap mixing bowl against counter top about 30 times to release some of the air bubbles.
- Divide mixture among muffin cups filling each cup about 2/3 full. Bake in preheated oven 20 - 23 minutes, centers should still jiggle slightly, don't over bake (if they begin to crack they are starting to become over baked).
- Remove from oven and allow to cool 1 hour. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and transfer to refrigerator and chill 2 hours. Serve chilled with a spoonful of Salted Caramel Sauce or plain or with any other amazing topping.
Enjoy!
I’m linking to the parties located HERE.
This looks awesome!!! We would love it if you would link up at our linky party:
http://www.lifewiththecrustcutoff.com/two-girls-and-a-party-link-up-22/
Live every Wednesday to Sunday.
Hosted by:
http://www.lifewiththecrustcutoff.com/ Parrish @ Life with the Crust Cut Off
http://thissillygirlslife.com/ Dana @ This Silly Girl’s Life
We hope to see you there!
To make it even easier, try using a pecan sandie cookie as the base. Just push the whole cookie into the bottom of the muffin liner and pour in filling. I will try your homemade caramel sauce, looks really good.
Your little cheesecakes look beautiful! I love the salted caramel flavor, and it sounds like it would be just delicious paired with a cheesecake!!! Looks absolutely delicious!
YUMMMY!! These look SO GOOD!
Yes – DELICIOUS is the right descriptions
I so want to eat one now 🙂
Wonder if a rolo on top would work too……
Are these regular cupcake size, or the mini muffin size? Hard to tell from the photo.
Hi Trish – these are regular cupcake size. I would LOVE mini ones but I’m afraid I would eat about 100 of them at a time =o)
I’m planning to do this tomorrow. About the cream cheese, is it 4 pcs of the 8oz so 32oz total? Just a little confused there.
Hi Cathy – it’s 4 of the 8 ounce packages. It’s a lot of cream cheese but so worth it! They are delicious!
Do you have a recipe for the salted caramel sauce?
Hi Emily – There’s a link in the post but here it is as well http://makingmemorieswithyourkids.com/2013/06/caramel-sauce/
It’s so good! Hope you enjoy it.
how thick should the caramel sauce be?
Hi Kelly – It wasn’t super thick but thickened up in the fridge. If you’re serving the cheesecake at room temp. it’ll be a little runny (and go everywhere.) But it will still taste amazing! I served mine chilled.
I used Large cupcake liners and ONLY used 2/3 of the batter to fill the cups. I filled them quite full. Anyone else have this problem. Should I have not used all the crumb?
Hi Kelly, So you had leftover batter? If so, you can put an Oreo in the bottom of the other liners and use that for the crumb topping. I think I did that with 2 but didn’t have very much batter left over.
Will this work in mini muffin size? If so, what would the baking time be?
You absolutely could do mini cheesecakes! I’m not sure what the cooking time would be, though. You’d have to check often to see if they are set up.
How long would you say these are good for?
Hi Danielle – Mine didn’t last very long so I’m not sure the max time. After 4-5 days they were still perfect, though. And they freeze very well. Just leave off the caramel.
Thanks for stopping by!
These look fabulous and mine are now in the oven. I followed the recipe exactly and I have enough for 12 more or so. This recipe uses standard sized muffin pans and not the giant ones, right? (I don’t mind the extra, of course. The batter tasted right so my measurements are right). Just curious.
Jen, I had extra too. I put Oreos in the bottom of muffin liners and used the remaining batter/cheesecake filling for those. So glad you liked them! Enjoy!
I have to present an informative speech for my class on how to do something, so I used this recipe and made mini ones for my class, they turned out really good! now I just have to make a power point about it lol