Stitch and Bear

A long-running Irish blog with reviews of the best restaurants in Dublin and throughout Ireland. Some wine and cocktails thrown in for good measure!

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Baked Mini Blackberry Cheesecakes

Did you know that there's a National Cheesecake Day (well, in the US at least)? The official date was July 30th, and I have a whole heap of websites bookmarked following a blitz of cheesecake-related tweets on Twitter. My undoubted favourite of all these links is "10 rich recipes for National Cheesecake Day" from Yummly.com.Feast your eyes on the luscious photos in this link - don't they just want to make you run to the kitchen and start baking?

Lately, baking seems to be obessed with individual portion food. First there were cupcakes, now the trend seems to have moved on to mini-cheesecakes. Now, I can undoubtedly see the attraction of miniature cheesecakes. Perfectly sized for an individual treat, they also look adorable. Check out Irish blog Like Mam Used to Bake for Individual Strawberry Cheesecakes for a miniature take on the traditional cheesecake.

Like most Irish people, I grew up on the traditional cheesecake, but in later years, I've grown the prefer the American-style baked cheesecake. Thus, when I decided to make my mini-cheesecakes, I went Yankie-style. Autumn fruits are in season now, so it's easy to pick up plump, sweet blackberries which, when baked, will produce fabulous streaks of colour in the finished treat.

Stitch and Bear - Baked mini blackberry cheesecakes
Baked mini blackberry cheesecake
Ingredients
1 pack shortbread biscuits
100g butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1x 220g tub of cream cheese
1 egg
70g icing sugar
1/2 small punnet blackberries

(makes approx 12 cheesecakes)

Preheat your oven to 180 Celsius.  Line a bun tray with paper cases.

Place the biscuits into a plastic bag and smash with your rolling pin until broken with evenly sized crumbs. Alternatively, you can blitz the biscuits in a food processor. Meanwhile, place the butter in a saucepan and melt over a low heat. Once melted, add the biscuits and cinnamon and mix thoroughly. 

Divide the mixture bewteen the paper cases (if you're falling a little short, then allocate the mixture so that you have a reasonably thick base, rather than too many thin bases). Tamp down the mixture and pop the tray into the oven for 10 minutes in order to firm up the base. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack, but make sure to leave the oven on.

Place the cream cheese into a bowl, along with the egg & icing sugar. Beat with a mixer until smooth and combined. Roughly chop the blackberries into large pieces and stir loosely into the mixture. Divide the mixture between the cases, filling up the top.

Place the cheesecakes in the oven, and bake until lightly golden, and the top has started to split. Turn off the oven and leave the cheesecakes to cool in the oven. Once cool to touch, remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy!!
Stitch and Bear - Baked mini blackberry cheesecakes
Baked mini blackberry cheesecakes
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