Mini Cheesecakes with Tangy Topping Recipe

Mini Cheesecakes with Tangy Topping Recipe bettyskitchen Hi I’m Betty. Welcome to Betty’s Kitchen. Today we’re going to be making miniature cheesecakes their going to be just like cheese cake but their going to be tiny. They can be used as a finger food at a reception or at a party or just at home so let’s get started with our crust and we’re going to have a graham cracker crust that’s kind of common for a cheesecake but since these are miniature we’re going to cook that or bake that in muffin tin so I’m going to start getting prepared for that. In need some softened butter. This is half stick. I probably won’t need all of it and I need some graham cracker crumbs. Now you can buy cans or boxes of graham cracker crumbs I just didn’t happen to have any here at home this morning but I did have graham crackers so I decided to make my own crumbs. I don’t feel like you have to make your own crumbs if you want to buy the crumbs at your grocery store then you’ll probably need maybe a cup or so. I took a whole inner pack here and then I put them in a zip lock bag and just rolled them until I had very finely rolled crumbs so I don’t need this anymore. I’m going to open this up so I can get to it and I’m going to show you one of these and then I’ll finish the rest myself. You need access to your butter and the easiest way is just to use your hand so this is softened butter you’re going to make sure that you generously grease each one of these and since I said I was going to show you one normally you wouldn’t do the buttering and then shift off to this and then back and forth. You do the buttering all the way around and then you would do the graham crackers all the way around so don’t think I’m weird it’s just I’m showing you one so you just get some of this and give a nice amount and I’m going to put some right back I think I got too much and then try to make it stick because you got that butter and this is going to be your little crust. I finished making my mini cheesecake crust and you can see that I ad started with a half stick of butter and I’ve used and that’s 4 tablespoons. I have used about half of that so probably for a pan like this which there are 12 muffin tins and there are 2-1/2 inches across so for this batch it’s going to take about 2 tablespoons of soft butter and then if you look at the amount I have used of my graham cracker crumbs not as much as half of them probably so if you’re thinking in terms of a pack of graham crackers I used a whole pack to put inside this bag so I half pack would have been I have to get this far. And now let’s make our filling for our miniature cheesecakes. I have two bowls here with 3 eggs which are separated so I just use some eggs regular eggs and we have 3 yolks here one of those broke on me but I was very sure not to put any of that in my egg white mixture because I was going to beat these until they were well beaten and you can’t have formed matter in there when you’re beating those so make sure that you don’t make that mistake. I am going to beat these yolks up a little bit so it’s I wanted to have this nice and clean and pure while I was using it in the egg whites but now I don’t have to wash it before I use it with the yolks. Just a little blending there is all I needed because at this point I’m going to take 2/8 ounce packages of cream cheese which is at room temperature. To this I’m going to add these egg yolks that I have beaten up and you notice it was just a very short beating there it wasn’t anything like a well beaten egg. I just need to mix together at some point. And then I have 3 quarters of cup of sugar so I’m going to add that in and then blend these together. So I’m just finishing up mixing those together and you see that they really do need to be pretty well blended and I just need to scrape down the sides now and I will have my cream cheese filling. So I have my cheesecake mixture all blended and smooth and there’s one more thing I have to add and remember those 3 egg whites that I had stiffly beaten at this point we want to fall those in so you’re very gentle with them and we want to get those incorporated into our mixture so we just kind of turn the bowl and fold. So I had just been turning the bowl and folding until I had this nice smooth texture for the egg white has been blended into the rest of the cheesecake mix. So now we want to put them into our prepared pan. Let’s go for this one right here. We want to fill that 3 quarters of the way full so choose a spoon that you think might work for you. This one I’ll just put that right in the center and then let it kind of lay over the way it wants to go and that looks to me about 3 quarters of the way full so what I’m going to do is fill these 12. This may make more than that probably will but I’m just going to concentrate on the 12 today. When I get them filled I’m going to put this in a 350 degree oven and they’ll be baking for about 20 minutes and I’ll show you what they look like when they come out of the oven. I have my cheesecake in the oven; this little many cheesecake. I have it baking at 350 degrees and about 10 minutes have passed by so let me tell you what’s going to happen with those. I will bring them out of the oven and let them cool. When they cool they fall and they make an indentation in the center so we’re going to make a nice filling to go in the center. So this can be done while you’re baking your mini cheesecake. Let’s start with 1 cup in a 9-inch pie plate and to that you’re going to add some granulated sugar so just regular sugar here you need ¾ of a cup. So just pour that in there and you need a little bit of flavoring here, vanilla extract. We need ½ teaspoon. Let’s just put that in and tehn start blending. This makes about 1 cup worth and it’s pretty much ready to go so I’m just waiting on those mini cheesecakes to get ready and then after they cool and fall this will be baked and ready for making yellow centers. My mini cheesecakes are done. I have let the cook for 16 minutes. It didn’t seem to need a full 20. They’re pulling away from the sides and they’re beginning to brown up a little bit so they’re going to sit here and cool for 10 to 20 minutes. The mini cheesecakes have been cooling about 15 minutes and I have started to take them out. What I generally do is run around the edge with a knife and then it’s kind of convenient to lift it up with a spoon handle and go under with the spoon to get as much of that bottom as you can. Now remember that wonderful topping that we put in the oven and it’s a sweet sour taste because it’s got sour cream and sugar and remove this over just a little bit and I’ll show you the indentation there can be filled up to the top like that and it could spill over the side like that and that’s not a big problem. I will go through and do all of these and I’m just going to serve up one of these and this is still warm and the topping is still hot so I’m not going to actually try to take a bite of that but you can see how appealing it is and it is a finger food and it would not be as tender as it is right now if it had a chance to cool off a little bit. It would be very easy to pick up and eat but if you want to choose to use a fork with it that’s fine with me. Enjoy!