Whenever we go out to dinner, if there’s cheesecake on the menu, we’re definitely ordering it. We brought some of those restaurant vibes back home with these mini cheesecakes. The white chocolate makes them extra decadent and the tartness of the raspberry sauce is the perfect balance to the creamy goodness that is this cheesecake. They may be mini but boy, do they pack a punch of flavor and you’ll be going back for more (we may be guilty of eating two of these in one go!).
White Chocolate & Raspberry Mini Cheesecakes
Ingredients
Crust
- ⅓ cup almonds lightly toasted
- 6 graham crackers
- pinch of salt
- 1 ½ tbsp butter melted
Raspberry Sauce
- ½ pint raspberries fresh
- ¼ cup sugar
- ¼ cup water
- 1 tsp lemon juice
Filling
- 2 8 oz packages of cream cheese softened
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 2 eggs
- 2 egg yolks
- 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream
- ½ cup white chocolate chips melted
- ½ tsp lemon zest
Instructions
- To make the raspberry sauce, add the raspberries, sugar, water, and lemon juice to a small sauce pan over medium-high heat. Once the mixture comes to a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and let it simmer for about 10 minutes, or until it has thickened.
- Remove the sauce from the heat and strain into a bowl and set aside. Discard the raspberry seeds.
- Preheat the oven at 350 F. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.
- In a food processor, add the almonds, graham crackers, and salt and pulse until everything is crushed into fine crumbs and combined. Remove the crumbs into a bowl and add the butter and mix well. The mixture should be the consistency of wet sand.
- Add about 1 ½ tbsp of the crust mixture to each cupcake liner and press down. Bake the crust for 4 minutes then set aside.
- Once the crusts are done baking, reduce the oven heat to 325 F.
- In a large bowl, mix the cream cheese, sugar, and flour, beating until it is smooth and there are no lumps in the batter. This makes the texture of the cheesecake smooth and silky.
- Add the eggs and the egg yolks and beat until they are just combined. You don’t want to add too much air to the batter so that the cheesecake won’t rise while baking.
- Mix in the whipping cream, white chocolate, and lemon zest.
- Pour about 3 tbsp of the mixture into each cupcake liner.
- Dollop ½ tsp of the raspberry sauce on top of each cheesecake and using a toothpick, swirl the raspberry sauce. You may not use all of the raspberry sauce. (You can make brownies or top some ice cream with the extra sauce.)
- Place the muffin pan in a shallow pan filled with warm water and place both pans in the oven. The water bath is essential for a well-baked and soft cheesecake. If you don’t use a water bath, the cheesecake will crack. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the centers of each cheesecake are just set. When the pan is shaken, the center should jiggle slightly.
- Cool the cheesecakes in the pan for about 5 minutes. Then remove the cheesecakes to a wire rack and cool for another 10 minutes.
- Chill the cheesecakes in the refrigerator for at least four hours or overnight. Serve at room temperature.
