Valentines Cupcheesecakes

At the Tribune, we have editorial board meetings every Friday where the pair who conducts the "postmortem" (i.e. reads the entire paper and comments) is also in charge of providing snacks for the meeting. Since I already make baked goods for my news meetings on Tuesday, I wanted this treat to be special, so I immediately decided on mini cheesecakes, or "cupcheesecakes". And since it just so happened to be the day after Valentine's, the stores were full of inspiration for decoration.


Conversation hearts are by FAR my favourite part of Valentine's Day. Not for eating of course--nutritionally they are nothing but carbohydrates: Sugar in a variety of forms, then filled out with a bit of starch, colour and the ones that I bought this year even had artificial fruit flavour. Still, whenever February 14th rolls around, I can't help but buy a pack of these candies, if only to have a good laugh over what the companies print on them.

The thing I love about cupcheesecakes is that they're so decadent, but also nice and small, so you don't feel too guilty eating one. They don't take too well to icing, which some may think is unfortunate, but I like it because I'm not stuck fussing with a recipe for the base, a recipe for the icing and then trying to use my limited cake decorating skills to make the cakes look good.

Of course, it's not like the possibilities aren't still endless! Cupcheesecakes also go good with sprinkles, chocolate chips, perhaps a little drizzle of some sort of sauce, pie fillings, fresh berries. Of course, if you're a purist, they also stand well alone.

Cupcheesecakes
Adapted from Allrecipes.com
Makes 6 cupcheesecakes (this recipe can be easily multiplied)
Crust:

• 85 mL (⅓ cup) graham cracker crumbs
• 15 mL (1 tbsp) butter/non-hydrogenated margarine, melted

Filling:

• 1 - 250 g (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
• 60 mL (¼ cup) sugar
• 7 mL (1½ tsp) lemon juice
• 2 mL (½ tsp) grated lemon zest
• 1 mL (¼ tsp) vanilla extract
• 1 egg

1. Preheat oven to 165°C (325°F). Line muffin pan with baking cups.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the graham cracker crumbs and butter with a fork until combined. Press a tablespoonful of mixture into each cup. Bake in the preheated oven for 5 minutes, then remove to cool. Keep the oven on.
3. Beat together the cream cheese, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla until fluffy. Mix in the egg.
4. Pour the cream cheese mixture into the muffin cups, filling each until 3/4 full. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool completely in pan before removing. Decorate and refrigerate until ready to serve--this last step is crucial in getting the right cheesecake texture; while it may not look/feel like anything spectacular when it comes out of the oven, everything will be ok after it has been refrigerated.

Chocolate cupcheesecakes: Omit lemon juice and lemon zest. Melt 2 - 30 g/1 oz squares of bittersweet chocolate and add in with 2 mL (½ tsp) of cocoa when beating cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. Be sure to melt the chocolate just prior to adding it in, or else it will solidify and not give your cheesecakes that rich, chocolate colour.

This is my submission for Spectacular Cupcakes 2008, hosted by HomeMadeS