Roasted Strawberry Mini Cheesecakes
Roasted Strawberry Mini Cheesecakes with a biscuit base, a beautiful creamy vanilla cheesecake filling and delicious jammy roasted strawberries on top.
Servings: 12 cheesecakes
Calories:
Follow at @ellasbetterbakes or tag #ellasbetterbakes!
Alter quantities (metric only) 12 cheesecakes
Here's what you'll need...
- 12 Cup Mini Cheesecake Tin made by Wrenbury
- Medium saucepan
- Baking sheet
- Food processor optional - you can crush the biscuits in a bag
- Baking sheet
Ingredients you'll need...
Biscuit Base
- 250 g Digestive biscuits (or if in the US use Graham crackers - 2¼ cups)
- 120 g Unsalted butter (½ Cup and 1 tablespoon) plus a little extra for greasing
- 20 g Demerara sugar or granulated sugar (1½ tablespoons)
Cheesecake Filling
- 560 g Cream cheese (ie soft cheese) at room temperature. "Philadelphia" full fat cream cheese is the best to use (2½ Cups)
- 250 g Golden caster sugar (1¼ Cups)
- 290 ml Crème fraiche - full fat at room temperature (1¼ Cups)
- 135 ml Sour cream at room temperature (½ Cup)
- 1 tablespoon Vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon Lemon juice equates to the juice of 1 average lemon
- 4 Large eggs - use 3 eggs and 1 yolk lightly beaten and at room temperature
- 45 g Plain flour (6 level tablespoons)
Roasted Strawberry Topping
- 500 g Fresh strawberries (4 Cups) quartered
- 6 large strawberries for decoration halved
- 4 tablespoon Granulated white sugar
- 1½ tablespoon Lemon juice must be fresh lemon - juice of about 1 average lemon
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon Powdered gelatin optional, helps to set the topping
Here's what we do...
Cheesecake Biscuit Base
- Grease your 12 Cup muffin tin with some extra butter. (To be honest, if you use the Wrenbury 12 Cup Cheesecake tin you probably don't need to do this, I just do it from habit and a bit of OCD!).
- Place your digestive biscuits into your stand mixer and blitz into crumbs. Or you can put them in a food bag, seal and smash them with a rolling pin. They need sand-like, but not dust-like (i.e. don't use a NutriBullet).
- Melt your butter slowly in your saucepan over a low heat (so that none evaporates) and then mix in your biscuit crumb mixture and demerara sugar. Make sure all of the butter has been absorbed.
- Weigh your biscuit mixture and divide it by 12 so that you know how much to add to each hole in your cheesecake tin. Mine comes to about 32 grams each.
- Add equal amounts of biscuit mixture to your tin and press down so that it is tightly compacted. I use the back of a cup measure to achieve this, the base of a glass would also work well.
- Refridgerate for 30 minutes until firm and set .
Cheesecake Filling
- Heat your oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/Gas Mark 4/350°F.
- Fit the paddle attachment to your stand mixer or the beaters to your hand mixer and place all of your cream cheese into your mixing bowl along with the sugar. Then beat on a low setting for 1-2 minutes until smooth.
- Add your creme fraiche, sour cream, vanilla bean paste (or extract) and lemon juice and beat a few times until incorporated.
- Add your lightly beaten eggs and beat until just mixed in.
- Sift over your flour and beat in briefly. Make sure the mixture is fully combined. I tend to fold it over a few times with a wooden spoon to be sure and to avoid adding too much air.
- Add equal amounts of the cheesecake mixture to each cavity of your cheesecake tin and level out.
- Bake for 5 minutes and then turn the oven down to 120°C/100°C Fan/Gas Mark ½/250°F. Continue to bake for another 40 minutes. The cheesecakes are ready when the middles have a very slight wobble still. They will be very pale on top.
- Turn the oven off but leave the cheesecakes in there for 2 hours to continue to set.
- Remove the cheesecakes and allow them to cool, still in the tin, on the counter. Once fully cool, wrap the tin in cling film and refridgerate for at least 4 hours, but preferably overnight.
Be careful not to overbeat, it will add too much air to the cheesecakes, meaning they will rise when baked and then implode and flatten once out of the oven.
Cheesecakes are perfectly done when their internal temperature is between 63-66℃.
Roasted Strawberry Topping
- Pre-heat your oven to 200℃/180℃ Fan/Gas mark 4/ 350℉.
- Line your baking sheet with greaseproof paper.
- Bloom your gelatin if using. To do this add 1 teaspoon of dried gelatin to 30 grams of water and mix thoroughly. Set aside.
- Mix your quartered strawberries with your sugar and lemon juice and then spread out on your baking tin.
- Roast in the centre of your oven for 25 minutes. The strawberries are ready when they are soft and the very edges of a few are just starting to turn black.
- Remove the strawberries and their juice to a heat proof bowl and immediately mix in your vanilla bean paste (or extract) and your prepared gelatin (including the water you mixed it in).
- Leave the strawberry mixture to fully cool, and then, leaving your cheesecakes still in tin, spread the roasted strawberries over the top of each one. Place half a strawberry on top.
- Return the cheesecakes to the fridge for an hour, to set the strawberry topping.
- Run a blunt knife around the edge of the cheesecakes and remove them from the tin by pressing up from the base.
Supporting Notes
Alternatives
If you want to make a whole Roasted Strawberry Cheesecake then simply use the same ingredients but in a 20 centimetre spring-form cake tin. Bake as per instructions in my Vanilla Cheesecake with Fruit Topping.No-bake Roasted Strawberry Cheesecakes
You may prefer to make no-bake roasted strawberry cheesecakes, which are equally delicious and also a bit quicker. Simply create the same biscuit base as per the Recipe Card and then for the cheesecake filling use: 160 grams (¾ Cup) of golden or white caster sugar500 grams (2 Cups and 2 tablespoons) of cream cheese ("Philadelphia" is by far the best for this)
250 grams (1 Cup) of mascarpone
300 ml (1 Cup) of double cream (heavy cream)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste and then simply... Mix your sugar, cream cheese, mascarpone and vanilla extract in your stand mixer with the paddle attachment fitted, or with your hand mixer and the beaters fitted, for 2 minutes on a low setting. In a separate bowl, beat your double cream using the whisk attachment this time, until it forms stiff peaks and then add it to the cream cheese mixture Mix thoroughly and then add equal amounts to each of the cups in your cheesecake tin and level out. Refridgerate for at least 4 hours, but preferably overnight as that really helps set the filling and allows the flavour to really meld together. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. For other no- bake cheesecakes, check out my Salted Caramel Cheesecake (No Bake) and Mojito Cheesecake (No Bake). Or for another delicious baked cheesecake, you may like my Vanilla Cheesecake with Fruit Topping