I had bought a bunch of cream cheese packets in the hopes of making a couple of cheescakes but never got around to it. Then I came across this recipe from BrownEyedBaker.
Mini Cheesecake Cookies
Yield: About 40 mini cheesecakes
Prep Time: 10 minutes Bake Time: 15 minutes
About 40 Nilla wafers
2 (8-oz) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Cherry pie filling
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a mini muffin/cupcake pan with paper liners. Place one Nilla wafer in the bottom of each mini muffin well. Set aside.
2. Cream together the cream cheese and sugar with a mixer until light and fluffy, and thoroughly combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until well combined. Mix in the vanilla.
3. Divide the batter evenly among each cup. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until the edges and top appear set.
4. Cool completely and then chill for at least a couple of hours. Top with a small amount of cherry pie filling. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
These were perfect because not only were they bite sized (good for me!) but they were small enough that my little 3 yr old and 1 yr old could finish them as well. I used a strawberry filling instead of the cherry as indicated in the recipe and they still came out delicious!
For those who are counting calories/weight watching, 2 of these bad boys are 6 points=about 141 calories.
Things I would do differently next time:
- get slightly bigger mini cupcake pans (the one they sell at Michaels, the Wilton brand, did not fit the Nilla cookies so i ended up having to use a regualr sized cupcake pan)
- figure out a way to not burn the bottoms (any advice on this would be greatly appreciated!)
- experiment with other toppings!
