Mini Black Forest Cheesecakes

Bama has been craving cheesecake for a while. (He even cheated on me by buying a Sara Lee one from the store! A brand, btw, that has the most obnoxious catch-phrase ever: "Nobody doesn't like Sara Lee." It hurts my ears every time.) Anywho...this prompted me to finally make some cheesecake. I made mini ones since we had a get-together to go to. Plus, everything's better in mini-form :)

Here is the website where I got the recipe: http://www.bakersroyale.com/cheesecake/mini-black-forest-cheesecakes/

I used cupcake tins instead of mini cheesecake tins, which I did look for at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Michaels but was unsuccessful.

Ingredients:
Cheesecake:

• 1/2 cup(s) of boiling water
• 1 tablespoon of gelatin
• 1/3 cup(s) of sugar
• 2 cups of Oreo cookies, crushed
• 1 1/4 cups of heavy cream
• 8 ounces of cream cheese (I used fat-free)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 cup(s) of semi-sweet chocolate, melted (I use an awesome Pampered Chef bowl to melt chocolate in the microwave)

• 1/4 cup(s) cherry reduction sauce*

* Homemade cherry sauce:

• 1 cup cherries (pitted)
• ½ cup water
• ½ cup sugar
• ½ cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions:
* Homemade cherry sauce:

1. Add cherries, water, sugar, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice in a pot over low medium heat. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer, stir frequently until mixture is reduced by half. Push mixture through a strainer to remove any skin. Pour mixture into a shallow bowl to cool.

Cheesecake:

1. Mix gelatin and sugar in a bowl; add boiling water and stir until gelatin completely dissolves, about 5 minutes.

 

2. Press crushed Oreos to bottom of cupcake tins. I used paper liners to help with clean up and to make traveling easier. (I crushed them in a bag with a rolling pin, but I did not crush them fine enough which made some of the cheesecakes a little too crumbly out of the wrapper)

 

3. Beat heavy cream to medium peaks. Add cream cheese, lemon, salt, beat on medium-high speed unitl mixture is smooth, about 3 minutes.

4. Add a large dollop of cream cheese to to the gelatin and fold to blend. Add remaining cream cheese mixture to gelatin and slowly fold until well incorporated.
5. For this next step you can either divide the batter into thirds in three bowls, or "eyeball" it and pour out a third into another bowl. Then add the cooled, melted chocolate to the 2/3 portion and the 1/4 cup cherry sauce to the 1/3 portion.

cherry sauce added

chocolate added

 

6. Layer cupcake tins with chocolate filling, cherry filling and then chocolate filling once more. (Unfortunately, since I used cupcake tins instead of the original recipe's cheesecake things, I started out with too many, so I didn't have enough chocolate left to make a second layer of chocolate on top of the cherry. Next time, I think I would just start with 12 and that should leave enough batter.)

7. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. Garnish with whip cream and cherry.

 attempting to show the layers...

 



 

*Homemade Whipped Cream

 

Ingredients:

1 cup Heavy Cream

1 tbsp powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

 

Directions:

Beat heavy cream until almost stiff peaks. Add powdered sugar and vanilla. Continue beating to stiff peaks. (Do not overbeat)

 

I put the whipped cream in a pastry bag and piped it on top of the cheesecakes. I added a cherry (unpitted), which Bama wasn't a fan of. If you want pitted cherries on top, you'll have to sacrifice the elegance of the stemmed cherry.