Mini Baked Cheesecakes by Aunt T & Ms. Strawberry

It's strawberry season! So cheap!! What to do with all these strawberries? Bake of course! My good friend Ms. Strawberry and I have had a couple of rewarding baking adventures in the past (below), so I've decided to share this time.

[Left] Cookies & Cream Layer Cake; 
[Top right] Fresh cream Taro cake; 
[Bottom right] Marzipan decorated chocolate cupcakes

Ms. Strawberry is a veteran of baking (more so than me), so credit goes to her and the recipes adapted from Taste.com and BakedbyRachel. 

Mixing, beating, filling mini cake tins, baking, prep-ing decorations:

Four and a half hours later, time for decorating! 

 

 

 

And finally, after 6 hours, the finished products! 

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Vanilla Baked Cheesecakes

Ingredients.
Filling:

• 250 g cream cheese, room temperature (easier to work with when its softer)
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste (or extract)
• 1 tbs fresh lemon juice (or substitute for your favourite liquor, we used raspberry liquor)
• 2 eggs

Base:

• 12 Arnott's Choc Ripples biscuits
• 100 g butter, room temperature

Decorating (optional):

• Apricot glaze (apricot jam and water)
• 1 punnets strawberries
• 1 punnet blueberries
• 1 kiwi fruit

Baked Vanilla Cheesecake

Directions.

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 12 baking rings (or mini round baking tins) with baking paper. This is recommended; although we found the cakes to slide out easily regardless. (We did two batches of 6). 
2. Use an electric beater to beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and lemon juice (or liquor) until creamy and smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Set aside. 
3. In a food processor, blend the biscuits until fine crumbs. Then add in butter and continue to blend until mix in well. 
4. Divide the biscuit mix amongst the baking rings and press down firmly. Fill each ring in with cream cheese mix, be sure to stop approx. 1 cm from the rim. 
5. Bake for 20 mins or until slightly risen and just beginning to crack on the surface. 
6. Set aside to cool for 10 mins. Refrigerate for 1 hr or until chilled. 
7. Decorate: top with fresh strawberries, blueberries and kiwi fruit; brush with apricot glaze to finish (or dust with icing sugar instead). 

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Mini Baked Oreo Cheesecakes

Ingredients.
Filling:

• 350 g cream cheese, room temperature 
• 1/2 cup caster sugar 
• 1 tsp vanilla 
• 1 egg 
• 1/2 cup oreo crumbs (10 halves, cream removed) 

Base:

• 20 Oreo cookies with cream (we used chocolate Oreos) 
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter 

Decorating:

• 200 g thickened cream, whipped to stiff peak 
• Nestle chocolate buttons, melted (to make chocolate shards pictured) 
• 1 punnet strawberries 

Directions.

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Line 12 large muffin pans with baking paper. (We used cylinder silicone baking pan to give the shape pictured. They were a bit small so we also managed to fill a mini round springform cake tin). 
2. Use an electric beater to beat the cream cheese, sugar until creamy and smooth. Beat in the vanilla, cookie crumbs and egg. Mix until just combined. Set aside. 
3. In a food processor, blend the biscuits until fine crumbs. Then add in butter and continue to blend until mix in well. 
4. Divide the biscuit mix amongst the muffin pans and press down firmly. Fill each pan in with cream cheese mix, 3/4 full. Tap pan on counter to release air bubbles. 
5. Bake for 15 mins or until slightly risen and just beginning to crack on the surface. 
6. Cool completely on a wire rack. Then refrigerate for ≥ 4 hrs. (We only had 1 hr).  
7. Decorate: pipe whipped cream, top with chocolate shards and strawberries. 

Storage: Keep refrigerated at all times.

They look pretty fancy but its actually quite easy. Give them a go, impress your friends and remember to post a comment so I know how you went!