Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes
September 01st, 2009 | Category: Cheesecake, Muffins and Cupcakes
Why haven’t I thought of this before? Individual servings of creamy and tangy lemon cheesecake. But most importantly, why haven’t I seen these before? Someone must have discovered cheesecake cupcakes decades ago, right? So, even though I have zillion cookbooks, flip through jillion food magazines and read gazillion food blogs, why don’t I remember seeing cheesecake cupcakes before?
Has the time come? Am I so over saturated with images of food that I don’t really see what I’m looking at anymore?
Or is it just about turning the right page (or clicking the right link) at the right time?
When I saw the individual cheesecakes recipe in delicious. magazine’s June 2009 issue, I didn’t just mark the page and continued reading. I opened the fridge door and checked if I had cream cheese. Luckily, I did. I also had fresh mulberries from my father’s garden. Perfect!
The beauty of this recipe is that you don’t need to go through the process of a water bath, which is quite scary especially for cheesecake virgins.
Believe me, it is very hard to screw up with this recipe. And even if you do, don’t forget: Combination of berries and powdered sugar is the best concealer known to the home baker.
I love it when I get to salvage leftovers from a previous baking adventure. Once in a while, I bake more cookies than I can eat.
OK, all the time. Since I am against trashing anything edible, I always freeze them and wait for a recipe to come by.
Thanks to this lemon cheesecake cupcakes, there opened some space to be filled in my freezer. Maybe a batch of pomegranate frozen yogurt? Oh yeah.
If you liked this recipe, then you’ll definitely like these, too:
Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes Recipe
Recipe adapted from delicious. magazine’s June 2009 issue
Makes 12 lemon cheesecake cupcakes
Ingredients
Cookie base:
- 3+1/2 oz (100 gr) gingersnap (or shortbread) cookies
- 2 oz (55 gr) ground almonds
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 3 tbsp butter, melted
Filling:
Important: For a creamy consistency, make sure that all the ingredients below are at room temperature.
- 1 lb. cream cheese
- 3+1/2 oz heavy cream (or sour cream)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 5 oz mulberries (or any kind of berry)
- 2 tbsp powdered sugar
Method
- Preheat your oven to 325F.
- Line a 12-hole muffin tin with muffin cases and set aside.
- Crush the cookies to fine crumbs and mix with ground almonds, sugar and melted butter.
- Press 1 heaped tablespoon of mixture into the base of each muffin case and place in the refrigerator to chill.
- Beat the cream cheese, heavy cream and sugar in a mixer until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, followed by vanilla extract, lemon juice and lemon zest, beating well after each addition.
- Rap the mixer bowl hard on your counter to knock out the air bubbles trapped inside the filling.
- Spoon the mixture over the cookie bases 3/4 full.
- Press three mulberries into the filling and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the cheesecakes are puffed and starting to color.
- Cool, then chill until ready to eat.
- Decorate each cheesecake with more mulberries and dust with powdered sugar to serve.
