For The Glutton’s
Petite Strawberry Shortcake Cheesecake
(Yields 18)
The adorableness of this dessert is my favourite part. Normally, the emphasis of my dishes are on the level of tastiness, but this one is just so darn cute…
These individual cheesecakes came about as I was making a dessert to thank my friend for hooking me up with some amazing skincare products. She suggested that if I needed inspiration, she loves strawberries. Have I mentioned before that I’m a people pleaser? I made a full sized cheesecake, and then had some of everything left over… Ta Da! Double dessert credit, for the effort of one (I brought these babies over to a friend’s with my seafood lasagne).
Ingredients:
- 3 eggs, room temp
- 1 cup caster sugar
- 1 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/3 cup water
- 1 tsp vanilla
Cheesecake
- 2 8oz pkg cream cheese
- 1/4 cup cream
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 3/4 cup sugar
- pinch salt
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 2 drops red food colouring
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 1 cup/18 pieces strawberries (fresh or frozen)
Whipped Cream
- 1 cup whipping cream
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
Garnish
- 9 fresh strawberries, sliced in half
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar
Directions
Preheat oven to 375C/176F.
Shortcake: Beat eggs in large bowl with electric mixer of some sort for 5 mins. Gradually beat in sugar, beat for another 2-3 minutes. Sift together the dry ingredients. Stir in water and vanilla. Fold in the flour mixture. Batter will be quite runny. Grease muffin tins. Scoop about 1/3 into each of the 18 indentations.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Loosen edges from pan with a knife, allow to cool for 10 min. Cut top off, but keep both halves.
Cheesecake: Cream the cream cheese with hand mixer until smooth and creamy (no lumps). Add sugar, blend 2 min. Scrape sides of bowl, salt, vanilla, blend, scrape. Cream, blend, scrape. Beat in eggs, one at a time, scrape and blend again. Split batter in two. To one, add lemon juice and red food colouring. Blend. To the other add almond extract. Blend.
Whipped Cream Prep: Wash beaters. Place large mixing bowl, beaters, cream, and vanilla into the freezer. Trust me.
Replace shortbread bottoms in muffin tins. Pour 1/3 cup pink cheesecake mix onto each. Press one piece of strawberry into each one. Bake 20 mins. Remove from over, loosen edges with knife **but do not remove from muffin tin**. Allow to cool 10 mins in fridge, then fill with almond cheesecake batter to rim. Place muffin tin on cookie sheet into oven (as you can see from the above photos, I didn’t think to do this until post-bake). Bake another 20 mins, or until top turns golden.
Whipping Cream: remove from freezer. Pour heavy whipping cream, sugar and vanilla into the cold bowl and whisk on high speed until stiff peaks form (1 minute-ish). Don’t over-do it.
Feel free to garnish with almond slivers.
For The Glutton 