I love making mini desserts for Valentine’s Day. These mini chocolate cheesecakes look so cute and I appreciate the attempt at portion control.
I’ve had the heart shaped baking tins for a long time and have made many mini cheesecakes over the years. Unfortunately I lost my original recipe and needed to search for another. I know that most people do not have these pans so I wanted to make sure the recipe could easily be made in a muffin tin as well.
The ingredients for mini cheesecakes are:
- Cream cheese
- Sugar
- Sour cream
- Eggs
- Heavy cream
- Semi sweet chocolate
- Dark cocoa powder
- Pure vanilla extract
The cheesecakes were easy to make. I just peeled the paper muffin liners away from the cheesecakes and they maintained their nice shape and honestly were less fussy than the heart ones.
While the heart shaped mini cheesecakes are adorable and would be lovely to serve at a party, they are tricker to get out of the pan. The crust would sometimes stick to the bottom of the heart mold. Of course the cheesecake is still delicious, with or without the crust.
As a matter of fact, I am working on converting these mini cheesecakes to a low carb version and I may not even fuss with a crust. Although I do have a recipe for brownie crisps that would probably work well as a base for a low carb crust. I will work on that..coming soon.
Cute and delicious mini cheesecakes. The third best part is that they are perfect to freeze if you have leftovers. I won’t have leftovers since I’m sending these to the shop with my husband…
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Valentine Mini Cheesecakes
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 20 mini cheesecakes 1x
Description
Adorable mini chocolate cheesecakes made in either a muffin pan or a ‘fancy’ heart shaped pan. Either way, they are delicious!
Ingredients
For the crust:
- 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
- 4 tablespoons melted butter
- 3 –4 tablespoons sugar
- 3 –4 tablespoon cocoa
For the filling:
- 6 oz semi sweet chocolate bar, chopped ( 1 1/2 bars)
- 16 oz ( 2 packages) cream cheese, room temperature
- 2/3 cup sour cream
- 2/3 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons dark cocoa powder
- 2 large eggs + 2 egg yolks, room temperature
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325° F.
- Line muffin tins with paper liners.
- Spray the muffin pans and/or heart mold pan with baking spray.
- Make the chocolate crust:
- Melt butter and mix with sugar, cocoa and graham crumbs. Press approximately one tablespoon on the bottom of each cup or mold. ( I was only able to get 20 mini cheesecakes from the cheesecake recipe, so I had leftover crumbs. I would suggest putting the crumbs in all 24 cups as you may need the full recipe depending how much batter you put in each tin.)
- Bake the crusts in oven for 5 minutes. Remove and set aside to cool
- Lower oven temperature to 300° F.
- Melt chocolate in a double boiler or in 30 second increments in the microwave, stirring frequently until melted.
- In a food processor or mixer, blend the cream cheese and sour cream. Do not overmix and make sure you scrape the sides and bottom for any unmixed batter. Add the sugar and cocoa and beat until smooth. Add in the eggs, egg yolks and heavy cream. Mix together briefly approximately 20-30 seconds. Fold in the melted chocolate and vanilla with a spatula, making sure the batter is evenly blended together.
- Divide the filling among the muffin and/or heart molds. ( I only filled mine about 2/3- 3/4 full.)
- Bake cheesecake for 15 minutes. Turn off oven and leave door closed for another 10 minutes.
- Remove cheesecakes and let cool on rack before storing in refrigerator.
Notes
**To serve, peel cupcake liners from cheesecakes. If using molds, carefully push cheesecakes out from bottom of the hearts. Slide the metal bottom from the crust. You may lose 1 or 2 of the crusts if they stick, buy honestly they are so good, it doesn’t matter.
**I did freeze some mini cheesecakes until I was ready to photograph and they were perfect. I have frozen cheesecakes for up to a month without any problem, just lined the bottom and top of the container with parchment or wax paper.
Recipe adapted from Baker by Nature
Keywords: chocolate mini cheesecakes
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