Birthdays, Cheesecakes and Loot!

I saw these creamy babies at Bake or Break and I contemplated making them for my birthday because they looked so good. I placed a mental bookmark on them and moved on.

Then on my birthday I was talking to my 11 year old cousin and I decided to make these for him. We have the same birthday and he was asking me about my birthday cake. I told him I made myself a strawberry cheesecake tart and I asked him what kind of cake he got. He said he got a frozen Sara Lee cheesecake and I felt badly for him. He deserved more than that. Every boy on their 11th birthday deserves more than a mediocre frozen grocery store cake. Don't you agree?

So I vowed to make him these cheesecakes to celebrate his birthday as well as the 4th of July. We all met up at my mom's for a bbq, so it was the perfect occasion to make these. Coincidentally my mom's birthday and my other cousins' birthday are on July 5th, so we had a multi-birthday celebration. Only I made my mom a different cake and some fudge! I'll blog about that later.

Anyway, for my birthday the lovely Ingrid from 3 B's sent me Martha Stewart's new Cupcake book! I knew she had because she told me she bought it, but I had no idea she was going to send so many other goodies as well. Look at all this loot! Thank you Ingrid for making my birthday so special :-)

One of the things we decided to do was bake together from this book. She happened to bake these same Oreo cheesecakes so head over there to see hers!

Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes from Cupcakes via BoB

• 42 Oreos, 30 left whole and 12 coarsely chopped
• 2 pounds cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup sour cream
• pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 275°. Line standard muffin pans with liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each liner.

Beat cream cheese at medium speed using an electric mixer. Gradually sugar, beating until combined. Beat in vanilla.

Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies.

Divide batter among pans. Bake for about 22 minutes or until filling is set.

Cool completely on wire racks. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Remove from pans just before serving.

Makes 30 cheesecakes.

NOTE: Fill them up almost to the very top. They may puff in the oven, but they don't rise. I got 32 cheesecakes from this recipe.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The only problem I had with these cheesecakes is that they puffed in the oven, when I pulled them out and let them cool, they shrunk up a bit. Also when I took them out of the cupcake tin, there was condensation buildup underneath the cheesecakes. Don't know what that was all about, but it didn't affect the flavor or consistency one bit. And one last thing, I refrigerated these over night. The next morning when I went to pipe 'Happy Birthday' on them, they looked wet so I had to blot them. Has anyone else made these yet and had that happen?

These cheesecakes were SO good. They were easy to put together and since the recipe calls for a whole cookie in the bottom of the cupcake liner, there's no need to make a crust. Easy peasy and ultra creamy! My cousin loved them and he kept asking me what was in them as if he was making a mental note so he could go home and make them- so cute! I promised him I'd send his mom the recipe so she could make them again for him and that made him pretty happy.