Mini Baked Lemon Blueberry Cheesecakes

I love cheesecake.  There’s likely going to be a lot of cheesecake recipes on here.  I’m just preparing you now.

I found a recipe online for lemon blueberry cheesecake, but when I made it, the whole thing just fell apart.  It was a disaster.  And that was the last time I actually followed a recipe instead of making my own.

So with this, you can either make it in little mini forms (this recipe makes 24 mini), or as one normal sized cheesecake.

Ingredients

Base:

• 250g packet of plain sweet biscuit (I’m Aussie, so I use Arnott’s Milk Arrowroot or Milk Coffee)
• 200g melted butter

Cheesecake filling:

• 500g cream cheese (room temperature)
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp lemon zest
• 4 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 cup blueberries (you can add more if you like more blueberries)

Method

Base:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (160° C fan forced).  Grease regular cupcake/muffin tins.
2. Blend the biscuits to fine crumbs in a food processor.  Stir in the melted butter.
3. Spoon an even amount of base into each cupcake hole in the tray.  Press each base down with something flat, like the underside of a glass/cup.  You can use a spoon, but it doesn’t tend to give a very flat surface.
   • If you want to do a singular cheesecake, press down all of the mixture into a 22cm or 9″ greased baking dish.
4. Set aside.

Cheesecake filling:

1. In a medium-large sized bowl combine the cream cheese and caster sugar.  Beat until smooth and creamy.
2. Add the flour, vanilla extract, eggs, lemon juice and lemon zest.  Beat until combined.  (You can add more or less zest depending on how tart you like it.)
3. Add blueberries and stir through lightly.
4. Spoon mixture evenly into cupcake trays.
   • Or into large dish, as desired.
5. Bake for 30-35 minutes at 180° C (160°C fan forced)
   • 40-45 minutes for singular cheesecake – or until golden and not wobbly when removed from oven.
6. Let cool, and enjoy!

Now, there is a trick to taking the mini cheesecakes out of their trays.  You need to have greased the trays to start with.  You also need to let them cool completely.  This ensures that the bases have set and are one.  If you take them out too early they may crumble.  I use a butter knife warmed under hot running water, as it will easily separate if the cheesecake filling or base is stuck to the tray.  You shouldn’t need the pressure of metal cutlery as this could damage the biscuit base as well.

Good luck!