strawberries in paris

Kentucky Derby Mini Mint Cheesecakes

These babies were absolutely perfect for the party! I got tons of compliments and boy that sure solidifies my dream someday of doing this semi-professionally! After making the cupcake sized cheesecakes for the Daring Baker’s challenge I felt inspired to go even more mini and somehow incorporate mint into the mix!

I used the same chocolate wafers and added some peppermint extract and then added some mini chocolate chips to the cheesecake batter! The mint leaf on top brought it all together!

Ingredients:
crust:
8 oz chocolate wafers
5 tbsp melted butter
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp peppermint extract

cheesecake:
2 sticks of cream cheese, 8 oz each room temperature
1 cup marscarpone cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
3 large eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp raspberry liqueur

topping:
1 cup creme fraiche
1/2 cup powdered sugar
mint leaves

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients in a food processor and press into your preferred pan (mini cupcake pans!). You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too – baker’s choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and marscarpone at high speed for 5 minutes until smooth and creamy. Beat in chocolate chips and sugar until thoroughly blended. Beat in the liquer and continue beating until the mixture is very smooth, for about 4 minutes.

4. Set the mixer on low speed and add the eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated but taking care not to overbeat. Add the heavy cream just until incorporated, for about 30 seconds.

5. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the pan.

6. Bake 15 minutes, until it is almost done – this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill and freeze them to be able to remove from pans. Once fully frozen and removed from pan, place back into fridge, until it is ready to serve.

7. Mix topping ingredients together and place with a mint sprig atop chilled cheesecakes! ENJOY THE HELL OUT THEM!