Individual Cheesecakes and Lunch with the Girls

The girls (and friends) from work

The delicious and sleepy Elijah

The other day some of the girls from work had a little lunch together at Amy's house. We all brought something to eat so the food was pretty damn good. My contribution were these little individual cheesecakes which I also put strawberries on top of once I got there. I also took little individual caramel slices which I'll post about later. I made both of them in my little cheesecake pan. This holds 12 and each one has a removable base which makes them very easy to get out of the tin. The cheesecakes themselves were delicious (I mean is there such a thing as a bad cheesecake!?), and the strawberries really added to the flavour. I think I will making these more often. If you don't have one of these very cool tins, you can also make them in muffin tins but make sure you line them with muffin cases first.


Individual Cheesecakes

Crust

1 cup (100 grams) Superwine crumbs 

55 g crushed almonds

1 tablespoon (15 grams) granulated white sugar

55 g melted butter

Filling

450 g cream cheese, room temperature

2/3 c white sugar

1/8 tsp salt

2 large eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 tsp grated lemon zest

1/2 cup sour cream, room temperature

Cheesecakes 
Preheat oven to 150 C and place oven rack in the center of the oven. Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners.

For Crust
In a small bowl combine the biscuit crumbs, ground almonds, sugar, and melted butter. Press a heaping tablespoon of crumbs onto the bottoms of the 12 muffin cups. Press in to the base. Cover and refrigerate while you make the filling.


For Filling 
Beat the cream cheese on low speed until creamy and smooth. Add the sugar and salt and beat until combined scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated. Add the vanilla extract, lemon zest, and sour cream and beat until incorporated. Remove the crusts from the refrigerator and evenly divide the filling among the 12 muffin cups. 


Bake for about 18 - 22 minutes or until firm but the centers of the cheesecakes still wobble a little. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack. Let cool and then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate (a few hours or even overnight).


To serve, gently peel off the paper liners and place on your serving plate. Serve with strawberry or raspberry sauce, fresh berries, or drizzle with melted chocolate. These cheesecakes can be covered and stored in the refrigerator for several days.

Baked Vanilla Cheesecake

Decimated cheesecake  but you can see how creamy it looks...can you?

Reuben's favourite dessert and cake is a plain cheesecake. When I asked him what he wanted for his birthday cake this was his choice. No flavours, just a plain cheesecake with some strawberries on the side. So this was what he got. It doesn't look particularly glamorous in the photos but if you ever want a fantastic baked cheesecake look no further. The recipe is from Dorie Greenspan's book (and one of my bibles) 'Baking: From My Home to Yours'. This is AMAZiNG!!! Yes it uses a hell of a lot of cream cheese BUT this is cheesecake and therefore it is meant to be a treat and special occasion dessert. It fed 14 of us easily with some going back for seconds and then left 3 more slices for Reuben to have the next day (but yes I did just have the last little piece...well I made it!!!). This cheesecake is creamy but light and does not have that heavy denseness that some cheesecakes have. I found that it did colour quite a bit on the top but I just covered it with some foil to stop it from browning even more. In fact now that I am looking at the recipe it might have helped if I had dropped the temperature of the oven like the recipe said...must have had my boy-eyes on! You can make this into whatever you want by changing the biscuit base or adding some different flavours to the filling. Dorie offers lots of different options at the end of the recipe. So here it is...make it if you dare.


Tall and Creamy Cheesecake: A Basic


Prepare the 23cm springform tin by buttering it well and wrapping the bottom of the tin with 2 layers of tin foil.


Base
1 3/4c superwine biscuit crumbs
3 Tbsp sugar (I forgot this)
50-75g melted butter


Mix all together and press into a buttered 23cm springform tin so they come halfway up the sides. Preheat the oven to 170C and bake 10 mins. Reduce the oven to 160C.


Filling
900g cream cheese
1 1/3 c sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla extract (I used half this and half vanilla paste)
4 eggs
1 1/3 c sour cream or cream (I used half and half)


Boil a full jug.


Put the cream cheese into a stand mixer and beat until soft and creamy (about 4 mins).
With the mixer running add the sugar and salt and continue to beat for another 4 mins or so until the cream cheese is light. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one by one beating for a full min after each. This aeration makes it light. Reduce to low speed and add the sour cream and/or the cream, Scrape down well throughout to get avoid having lumps in the mixture. 


Pour into the tin (the mix should come almost to the top). Put the tin into a roasting dish and pour in enough of the boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the tin. Bake 1 1/2 hours, then turn the oven off, prop it open with a wooden spoon and leave in it's water bath for another hour. Remove the tin from the water bath and take the foil off. Leave to go cold on a rack in the tin then put it in the fridge for at least 4 hours (overnight is better).