Cheesecake Cupcakes

Tip:

• Use aluminum foil cupcake liners for cheesecake cupcakes so your cheesecake does not soak through the paper liner and make a mess.
• If you do not have sour cream on hand, use yogurt. Put yogurt into cheesecloth or coffee filter and place it over a bowl or cup making sure to have room for the liquid to drain and let sit for 30 minutes. Since sour cream is thicker than yogurt, this will allow the yogurt to become a thicker consistency and perfect for use in everything from baking to spinach and artichoke dip!

As I am sure many people are quite tired (possibly someone in my apartment??) of cupcakes everywhere, I decided to try a different spin on cup"cakes" and I was surprisingly pleased with the results partly because I don't typically like cheesecake and mostly because I forgot to set the timer and I have absolutely no sense of time!

So I bring to you,... Cheesecake Cupcakes!

Basically a blank canvas, Cheesecake Cupcakes and Vanilla Cupcakes are very much alike in that you can instantly change the flavor by choosing from a multitude of toppings. This past week, while devouring them, we have tried the Cheesecake cupcakes by themselves, topped with raspberries, topped with cool whip and raspberries, cut into pieces and drizzled with chocolate... you get the idea. Nothing failed! It was always delicious!

So here is the recipe from "125 Best Cupcakes" book by Julie Hanson with my various tweaks and notes in italic.

Cheesecake Cupcakes

• Muffin pan for 12 cupcakes
• 12 foil cupcake liners

CRUST:

• 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 7 graham crackers)
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1 tbsp packed light brown sugar

FILLING:

• 12 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 2 eggs

TOPPING:

• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 3 tbsp granulated sugar

CRUST:
1. In a food processor, turn graham crackers into crumbs, or just crumble them yourself. I put the graham crackers into a plastic bag and with a rolling pin crushed them.
2. Mix together graham cracker crumbs, melted butter and brown sugar. To get an even consistency of the butter and sugar, I used my hands to mix the mixture together so all of the graham cracker mixture would have moisture throughout.
3. Press mixture into bottoms of prepared cupcake liners.








FILLING:
1. In a food processor fitted with a metal blade, pulse cream cheese until smooth. You don't want to overprocess the mixture; you just want it to be smooth. I used a handheld mixer for the entire filling process.
2. Add sugar, pulsing until smooth.
3. Add sour cream, pulsing until smooth.
4. Add eggs, pulsing until smooth.
5. Scoop filling over crust in foil cupcake liners.
6. Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for 18-22 minutes or until centers of cupcakes are firm.
7. Let cool in the pan or on a rack for 5 minutes.



TOPPING:
1. In a small bowl, stir together sour cream and sugar. I ran out of sour cream so I spooned Greek Yogurt into a coffee filter over a cup to remove the excess liquid and proceeded with using the Greek Yogurt as a substitute.
2. Gently spoon and swirl (using back of spoon) mixture over cupcakes, covering tops.
3. Return to oven and bake for 4 minutes.
4. Let cupcakes cool to room temperature.
5. Remove from pan.
6. Refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight to chill completely.



Luckily, even though I forgot to set the timer, the cheesecake tasted perfect, not over or underdone. My cheesecake cupcakes did puff up quite a bit though resulting in cracks on top and a slightly sunken in cheesecake when cooked. Maybe I over-beat the mixture, whipping too much air into the eggs and whatnot? I will try this recipe again and try not to forget I am mixing a cheesecake and not cake. Could this possibly be why the original recipe was mixed with a food processor and not a handheld mixer with beaters?

Typically with cheesecakes you should set them in a water bath so the steam and heat will help prevent curdling, cracking and over darkening of the exterior of the cheesecake but since I did not have a pan large enough to put a cupcake tin in, I could not do this. However, I do not believe this caused the cracking at the top of my cupcakes since I do not think the steam would have prevented the puff up.

Cupcake Experiment #1 using JoyofBaking.com Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

We are in a very experimental mood lately! Yesterday, we began the great cupcake experiment in a quest for the perfectly moist and tasty cupcake because let's face it, people want the whole package, not just a pretty face (the frosting)!

First vanilla cupcake recipe up, JoyofBaking.com's Vanilla Cupcake. Here's where things become a bit dicey. I wanted to try 3 different add-ins with my cupcakes along with the original mix but we are on a major food overhaul (diets are for those who cannot stick to a plan for the long haul!) so I broke out the handy recipe ingredient converter and converted that baby down to 1/4 of its original size rendering me 3 cupcakes of each mix but such a small amount of mix is not so easy to... mix and while all of the ingredients were perfectly measured out (thank you new food scale!), the eggs may have gotten lost in there a bit. Who knew you could actually use "half" an egg! (Not just because the recipe converter said so..you can actually do it...I read up on eggs...a lot!)

So I measured, mixed, added and baked and voila! We have our first test cupcakes! Our add-ins were Sprite, Sour Cream and thick Greek Yogurt. Originally, I thought the Sour Cream and Yogurt would taste roughly the same but in the end, the sour cream didn't have that fresh baked taste although the moist-ness was about the same. The Sprite, Soner's idea, didn't turn out so hot...literally...the baking time should have been a bit longer for the Sprite cupcakes, however, since the cupcakes were all in the same pan, it was hard to adjust for that. I do not believe the Sprite cupcakes would have tasted better than the Greek Yogurt ones though. Overall, the Greek Yogurt cupcakes win out in the JoyofBaking.com's Vanilla Cupcakes (which is awesome as when we move to Turkey, they will not have Sour Cream and thick yogurt is what they do best!). Today I will try a different Vanilla Cupcake recipe, testing the Greek yogurt vs. original recipe then I will taste them against Cupcake Batch 1 (I saved two from each flavor although I have to act fast so they do not lose their moisture!) Bottom line, the original recipe tasted good but when you tasted it against the Greek Yogurt or Sour Cream cupcakes, they tasted dry.

In the end, I hope to nail down the best Vanilla Cupcake recipe for me then begin to tweak the recipe bit by bit for a difference you can taste.









JoyofBaking.com Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

2/3 cup (130 grams) granulated white sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Zest of 1 large lemon (optional)

1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup (60 ml) milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract and lemon zest.

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Evenly fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for about 18-20 minutes or until nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.


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