﻿Mini cheesecake cupcakes

This weekend was a double whammy. Two birthdays in the same family, both of which milestones. My boyfriend’s 30th birthday and his daughter (my niece) had her first birthday.

Knowing I would be travelling back to West Wales for the celebrations I thought I’d lighten the load and chances of accidents on route by baking some mini cheesecakes – Ben is a real fan of cheesecake desserts. I baked him this no-bake strawberry cheesecake a few years ago.

After the success of the Peanut butter and jelly cheesecake I chose a baked recipe and knowing how much of a sweet tooth he is I used Oreo cookies for the base.

For 8 cupcake cheesecakes:

a pack of Oreo cookies

45g melted butter

300g full fat cream cheese

1 tbsp plain flour

90g golden caster sugar

1 drop of vanilla paste

1 egg and 1 yolk

3 tbsp Greek yoghurt

a handful of strawberries (hulled and sliced) plus 4 half strawberries

Line a tray with 8 cupcake cases and preheat the oven to 180°C
Bash the cookies in a food bag with a rolling pin/blitz in a food processor until they look like breadcrumbs
Stir in the melted butter until well mixed. Divide the mix between the cases, pressing down so level. (I reserved a couple of spoons of the cookie mixture to top mine)
To make the cheesecake filling, beat the cheese in a bowl with a spatula until creamy, then stir in the flour, sugar, vanilla, egg and yolk, yoghurt and beat again until light.
Put a layer of the sliced strawberries on the cookie bases, then spoon out the cream cheese mixture on top – don’t over fill as they puff up while baking
Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. They will be puffed up and have a little wobble in the middle when they are done
Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tray for half an hour. Remove the cupcakes from the tin and chill in the fridge overnight (or at least 2 hours)
To serve, peel off the cupcake cases, garnish with the reserved crumb mixture and half a strawberry.

These little cupcakes went on a real adventure this weekend; I baked them on Friday night, packed them into a cool box along with a delicate fully frosted smash cake on Saturday morning, drove them 90 miles to the family boat, carted them in the heavy cool box onto two different boats, sailed around with them, put them back in the car and returned to Ben’s house. They weren’t tasted until 10pm on Saturday night – but they survived all the travelling – hoorah!