Pumpkin Pie (to continue the age-old food blogging tradition of assigning ridiculous, food-related monikers to one's privacy-loving friends), one of my oldest and best friends, is addicted to cheesecake in a really bad way. I often joke about how lucky it is for her waistline that she lacks the motivation to bake herself a cheesecake, so her opportunities to actually indulge in her favourite treat are far and few in between.
I, on the other hand, possess the means to whip up one of these anytime I feel like it. And like John Crichton from Farscape, it is only with an enormous amount of self-restraint and discipline that I do not put my knowledge of
So imagine my delight when P. Pie issued a request for cheesecake for her next birthday. And not just any cheesecake, but Ms. Nigella Lawson's chocolate peanut butter cheesecake. But since her next birthday wasn't going to happen until sometime late next year and I was impatient, I took it upon myself to fulfil the request for a few months earlier and brought the finished products to a pre-Xmas dinner for dessert :D
I'd made this cheesecake once before for my own birthday party this year, and it was pretty much decimated by the hoards (who had already stuffed themselves full with gelato cake, potato salad and trifle, I might add) on the spot.
Yep, it was tasty all right.
The one at my party was made following Nigella's recipe to a tee, including the digestive biscuits base and chocolate-sour cream glaze. This time round, I altered the recipe and made glaze-less mini-cheesecakes for 1) easier transportation and 2) a higher level of consumption convenience.
I was inspired by Nicole's (from Baking Bites) Halloween Oreo Cheesecakes recipe, in which she cleverly used a single, whole oreo cookie as the 'crust' for her mini cheesecakes. As she has mentioned in her post, this is a great (not to mention delicious :D) way of avoiding the trouble of processing together the ingredients for the crust, and then actually lining the baking tin (which has always been my least favourite part of making a cheesecake).
I also made a spontaneous decision not to put any chocolate glaze on these mini cheesecakes after observing how high they rose in the oven. I had filled each cupcake liner until there was about half a centimetre left at the top in order to leave room for the glaze, but clearly I'd forgotten that cheesecakes do rise when baked *facepalm*. My suggestion would be to either get deeper liners, or fill them with less cheesecake mixture.
Without further ado, here is the recipe!
Recipe for Peanut Butter and Oreo Mini Cheesecakes
Ingredients (adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe)
Makes 22-24 mini cheesecakes
For the 'base'
- 22-24 whole oreo cookies
- 500g cream cheese
- 3 eggs
- 3 egg yolks
- 200g caster sugar
- 125ml sour cream
- 250g smooth peanut butter
- 250ml sour cream
- 100g milk or dark chocolate chips
- 30g soft brown sugar
1. Preheat oven to 170°C (or 325°F).
2. Line muffin tray(s) with cupcake liners. Place a single, whole oreo cookie at the bottom of each liner. It's fine if the oreo doesn't cover the whole base of the liner. As you can see from the first picture in this post, the cheesecake mixture went over the sides of the oreo, so the cookie was essentially embedded in the cheesecake. I think it makes a nice surprise when you cut it open to reveal the oreo inside :D
3. To make the filling, process the cream cheese, whole eggs and egg yolks, caster sugar, sour cream and peanut butter in a food processor or with an electric beater, until smooth.
4. Spoon filling into the cupcake liners until there's about 1cm of space from the top of the mixture to the top of the liner. That'll leave you with enough room for the (optional) chocolate glaze.
5. Bake in oven for 18-20 minutes. The top should feel set and dry. Take mini-cheesecakes out of the oven. If you're not planning on making the glaze to go on top, the cheesecakes are done by this point and may be allowed to cool. If you are making the filling, go to step 6.
6. While the cheesecakes are cooling slightly out of the oven, make the topping by heating the chocolate chips with the sour cream and brown sugar gently in a saucepan over low heat. Stir to thoroughly blend everything together. Once well combined, take mixture off the heat.
7. Spoon chocolate glaze over mini-cheesecakes. Put back into the oven for a final 10 minutes. According to Nigella, this is to allow the glaze to "set".
8. Take cheesecakes out of the oven and allow them to cool completely in the muffin trays, then cover with cling and put in the fridge to chill overnight. Take cheesecakes out of the fridge slightly in advance before serving.
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