Mini Strawberry Cheesecakes

This easy recipe for tiny baked strawberry cheesecakes are the perfect bitesize fruity cheesecake treat! Mini strawberry cheesecakes with a Golden Oreo crust - packed full of berry flavour with freeze dried strawberry powder.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Preparing the Pan for Mini Cheesecakes
• Making the Cookie Crumb Base
• How to Make the Best Strawberry Cheesecake Filling
• Baking Mini Cheesecakes
• Toppings
• FAQs
• Mini Strawberry Cheesecakes

Ingredients

In order to make this recipe you'll need:

• Golden Oreos cookie crumbs - see my Golden Oreo Crust recipe for a bit more detail on how to create a fine cookie crumb with vanilla Oreos.
• Butter, melted - I recommend using unsalted butter in this recipe. You can substitute with salted butter without significant impact on the final product, you may notice salted butter leaves a slight saltiness to the finished base.
• Cream cheese - I always use spreadable cream cheese in my recipes. See my Cream Cheese Frosting recipe for details about Cream Cheese availability in the UK. You can use block cream cheese in this recipe, but you will need to allow this to sit out to soften first and may find it requires a bit more beating to get to a light workable consistency.
• Sugar - superfine granulated sugar or caster sugar work in this recipe.
• Egg
• Almond extract - almond compliments strawberry and gives the recipe a bit more of a punch. If you're not an almond fan or don't have almond extract, you can substitute with vanilla extract.
• Strawberry powder - use a freeze dried strawberry powder. This will add both natural colour and flavour to the cheesecakes.

Optional Toppings

To top these tiny strawberry cheesecakes, you have several options. My personal favourite topping is a combination of whipped cream and fresh strawberries.

For these cheesecakes, you can use a half batch of my Stabilized Whipped Cream recipe, which will require:

• Heavy cream - also known as whipping cream or double cream. You'll want this to be well chilled.
• Powdered sugar - or icing sugar. This will both lightly sweeten and stabilise the mixture.
• Vanilla bean paste - or vanilla extract.

And then a handful of small fresh strawberries, chopped into slices for decoration.

Preparing the Pan for Mini Cheesecakes

These bitesize cheesecakes are really easy to put together. Just like any other cheesecake, you'll want to start with preparing your pan.

These miniature cheesecake bites are made using a mini muffin pan. I use a 24-hold mini muffin pan. Simply line each cavity using mini cupcake liners - this will make the removal of the cheesecake bites from the pan quick and easy.

These are baked strawberry cheesecakes, so you will also want to pre-heat your oven as directed in the recipe card below.

Making the Cookie Crumb Base

As with my other recipes for a cookie crusts, first place the crushed cookie crumbs in a bowl. Then add the melted butter (image 1 below), stirring this together with a spatula to ensure that the cookie crumbs are coated. This should appear moist but not soupy or soggy (image 2 below).

Using a teaspoon measure, dollop about a teaspoon of the crust mixture into each lined cavity in the pan (image 3 below). Once you have divided the crumb evenly across the 24 cases, use the back of the teaspoon to press firmly so that the base is packed well into the bottom of each liner (image 4 below).

Set this aside while you mix the filling.

How to Make the Best Strawberry Cheesecake Filling

The filling is a simple one bowl recipe.

First beat the cream cheese until smooth - this will not take long if you are using the spreadable cream cheese called for in this recipe. If you are using block cream cheese, this will need to be softened at room temperature first and will take a little longer to beat smooth.

Add the sugar into the cream cheese slowly (image 1), continuing to beat and then add the egg and almond extract (image 2). Once combined, add the strawberry powder (image 3). If your powder is lumpy, you may wish to sift this first to ensure it mixes more evenly into the filling and doesn't form clumps.

You should now be left with a pink cheesecake filling. Spoon this evenly on top of the cookie crumb bases. I do this using a half tablespoon measure (image 4).

Baking Mini Cheesecakes

These tiny baked cheesecakes take only about 10 minutes in the oven.

The key is to keep an eye out - just like full sized cheesecake, these are prone to splitting if over or underbaked. You'll be looking for the cheesecake filling to rise slightly, but not to change colour or crack.

The beauty of mini cheesecakes, though, is that if a few crack a little no one needs to know! You can easily cover with a topping and no one will be the wiser.

Toppings

To top these mini strawberry cheesecakes, I recommend a bit of piped cream and some sliced fresh strawberries. For the cream, you could use store bought whipped cream or make your own stabilized cream, following my quick and easy recipe for homemade whipped cream.

As an alternative, you could also add some sprinkles, strawberry jam or a dusting of freeze dried strawberry powder. The options here are limitless!

Top toppings tips:

• Wait for the cheesecakes to have chilled before adding any toppings. Trying to add whipped cream while they are still warm will get messy and result in runny cream.
• If making in advance, you can add the whipped cream a day before serving, but wait until just before serving to add fresh cut fruit. Fruit juices will seep into the cream if left too long in the refrigerator before serving.
• If you are planning to freeze, I would recommend waiting to top until after the cheesecake bites have defrosted. This will avoid any risk of toppings separating from the cheesecakes in the freezer or during defrost.

FAQs

Looking for more cheesecake inspiration? Try:

• Biscoff Cookie Butter Cheesecake
• Strawberry Crunch Cheesecake
• S'mores Cheesecake
• Baileys Cheesecake
• Pumpkin Cheesecake