Baby Nutella Cheesecakes

This month, my assignment for Secret Recipe Club was:

Everything in the Kitchen Sink

As soon as I saw Sarah's recipe for Baby Nutella Cheesecakes, I knew what I was making! 

I only have one mini muffin pan, so the rest of my crust and batter are resting in the fridge for later.  I did have some trouble with the crust.  I couldn't get the crust to stop sticking to my wooden tart former, no matter how much butter I used to grease it.  I added another 1/4 stick of melted butter to the crust mixture, then ended up using a square of waxed paper over the tart former, which worked great.  Otherwise it was too fussy for me, I tried buttering my fingers, everything!

The only other change was halving the sugar in the sour cream topping. 

These little babies are soooo good!  Everyone loved them.  I'm glad I still have more to make.  Perfect little bites.

Baby Nutella Cheesecakes
Adapted from Everything in the Kitchen Sink

Crust:

1 package (about 8 full squares) of graham crackers

1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 a stick of butter, melted  (I used 3/4 stick of butter)

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Using the food processor, grind up the graham crackers into crumbs.  Add the sugar and salt, pulse 3 times, then add the melted butter.  Pulse a few more times and transfer to a small bowl, being sure to scrape any butter trapped under the blade.

Add 1-1/2 teaspoon of graham cracker crumbs to each well of the 24-mini muffin pan.  Press down using another mini-muffin pan, a tart former, or your fingers.

Bake for 5 minutes at 350 F.  Let cool while you prepare the cheesecake.

Cheesecake:

1 8-ounce package of cream cheese

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup Nutella (6 ounces)

Let the cream cheese, mayonaise, eggs, and nutella come to room temperature.  For best results, let cream cheese sit overnight and the mayo and eggs brought out 1 hour before you want to bake, just to come to room temperature.  Combine the cream cheese and mayonaise with a hand mixer.  Add the sugar then beat in the eggs one at a time.  Add the vanilla and Nutella and combine well.

Sarah uses ziplocs as pastry bags to distribute the cheesecake filling and topping, but I just used spoons.

Fill the wells with cheesecake batter, almost to the top.  Lightly tap the pans to get rid of any bubbles.

Bake for 12 minutes at 350 F.  The tops will be puffed.  Let cool while you prepare the sour cream topping.

Sour Cream Topping:

1 cup of sour cream

2 tablespoons sugar *(I used 1 tablespoon)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

pinch of salt *(I omitted)

Combine all ingredients.  Fill the divets in the cheesecakes created from cooling.  Bake for 2 more minutes, let come to room temperature, then refrigerate for 2 hours. 

To remove, use a butter knife slightly warmed with hot water to most cleanly retrieve your baby cheesecakes.

Serve chilled.