Gingerbread Cheesecake Bites

The crust is made with buttery ginger snaps and the filling is cream cheese spiced with warm ground spices- cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg and ginger . It all works so beautiful together and the balance of cheese and spices is just so wonderful.

I am so fond of mini cheesecake bites (more than the entire cheesecake itself) and played around with my recipe to make it holiday friendly. These are much simpler to make than an entire cheesecake and they are super easy. All you need is a block of cream cheese, an egg, sugar and spices for the filling. For the crust I used ginger snaps but you can use cinnamon grahams or chocolate cookies or anything you like.

It took me a while to wake up to gingerbread since the first time I tasted it. Even for someone like me who adores spices, a few bad baked ones spoilt my palate for it before I took matters into my hands and came up with the right ginger spice blend for us 🙂

Make sure that the cheese and egg are room temperature else the filling won’t be smooth. This is important for the cream cheese to blend well.

Recipe

Ingredients (Makes 10-12)

For the Crust

• 12-14 ginger snaps
• 1.5 tbsp butter melted
• 1 tsp sugar

For the Filling

• 8 oz cream cheese (please dont use low fat or no fat), softened at room temperature
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 3 tbsp soft brown sugar
• 4 tbsp powdered sugar (confectioners sugar)
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamom
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp ground dried ginger
• 1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cardamom
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• pinch of salt
• Toppings – whipped cream or caramel, nuts, melted chocolate, toffee sauce etc

Method

Line your 12 muffin/cupcake pan with liners and preheat oven to 350F.

Add the ginger snaps to a food processor fitted with metal blade, add butter and crust them to a fine powder. Put a heaping tablespoon in each liner and press down using back of a cup or spoon. Set aside.

In a large bowl, add all the ingredients under the filling (except topping) and using a hand mixer, beat until smooth and fluffy.

Add about 1/4 cup to the cupcake liners filling with crust. You can add the filling in a ziplock bag and pour too. So I had planned for 12 cheesecakes but ran out after 11th one was filled 🙂 Once filled, tap the pan a few times to get rid of any air bubbles.

Bake for 13-15 minutes or until set, little jiggly in the centre is fine. Once baked, switch off the stove, open the door and let the cakes be there for a 10 mins. Pull out of the oven and transfer to a rack to cool down completely.

Chill for at least 6 hours or overnight before serving. Add toppings as you wish.

Enjoy and Happy Holidays!