Mini-Cheesecake Nirvana

Cheesecake success! I feel like I've achieved  an illusive nirvana. My son needed a dessert for a fundraiser and I figured this couldn't be too hard. I've done Cheesecakes before and I have a mini-cheesecake pan, but before using this proved time consuming and for a large batch I wanted an easier way. With a few helpful hints from my older daughter in College (who won a cook-off with mini-chocolate cheesecakes) I tried a new approach. I used cupcake liners and this time opted to food-process the Nilla cookies and create a crust. (Before I've used one half of an Oreo cookie, which come in vanilla too) The cupcake size is a bit too big for this so I created a nice crust using the Vanilla Wafer Crumb Crust recipe on the Baking Bits vanilla-wafer-crumb-crust-recipe. Pressing this into the bottom of a cupcake was very easy and I baked it for 10 mins at 300 degrees.

1 Large box Nilla Cookies (11 oz)
1/4 cp melted butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1 Tbls. sugar

Using a food processor crush the Nilla Cookies till no large crumbs are left. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. If it's a bit dry put in a few Tbls. oil ( being in a dryer state such as Colorado, I'm always having to adjust recipes). When it looks like wet sand put a Tbl.  of crumbs in each cupcake paper. Press down on bottom, I used a combination of a large spoon and my hands. Bake till firm.

The batter-
4 Bricks of Cream Cheese- 2 lbs (room temperature)
1 cup Sour Cream
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2/3 cp sugar
1/4 cp flour
4 eggs

Mix Cream Cheese in stand mixer to creamy. Just at slow speed, avoid whipping it. Add -slowly- Sour Cream. Mix on slow. Vanilla and then sugar can be added. Keep shutting off the mixer in between adding ingredients to avoid over mixing and adding too much air. Add flour. Crack eggs one at a time into a small bowl and mix w/ a fork, then add to batter. When all is added use a rubber spatula to stir from the bottom, then slowly mix just a bit to make sure everything is incorporated.

Use a large scoop to put in about 2/3 of each cup. Bake 20 mins. at 325 degrees. For this batch I put a water bath under the cheesecakes while they baked and I didn't get the usual cracking. (Please note: The last batches I made a "mistake" and cooked them for 20 mins. at 300 degrees, they seem even better- no overly browned edges. But oven temps vary and my oven runs hot, see what works. My "mistakes" are often leads to new improvements in my baking.)

Cool.

Optional- Each cheesecake creates a nice crater, next time I'm going to fill it with canned cherries on top! But, wow I love that plain cheesecake taste, nothing beats it (except maybe Chocolate:) Makes 36 Mini-Cheesecakes. Don't want to cook so many? Freeze left-over batter and defrost and scoop another day!

PS- I just grabbed the last batch out of the oven. I had figured out the exact time to bake these mini-cakes and didn't peak this time (actually the previous times I peaked, a lot). So the last batch came out perfectly smooth with no crater. So in the future if I want to fill it, I'll peak so it sinks a bit. But the flat tops are beautiful. Seems I vaguely remember a Chef recounting how to do a perfect cheesecake and a water bath and no peaking was essential. I've assisted Cooking classes for years and I can zone out and I pick up this and that. Probably the best way to learn, in the end is to do it yourself and see what works, what flops and what just does it just right! Tonight I'm in the latter zone!