Description
Adorable mini chocolate cheesecakes made in either a muffin pan or a 'fancy' heart shaped pan. Either way, they are delicious!
Ingredients
Units
Scale
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