Mother's Day Sweet Treat

Last week we talked about ways to pamper mom in the comfort of your own home. We also mentioned a sweet treat that you could make for mom for the day of rest and relaxation and today we have a tutorial with lots of pictures to show you how to make that sweet treat.

I love cheesecake, but sometimes it can be so time consuming to make and since cheesecake is quite rich, having a big one can last a long time and it may get stale and go to waste. So we found a good and easy recipe for mini chocolate cheesecakes which are so delicious. We have made them twice now because they are soooooo yummy! I was really surprised at how quick and easy it was to make these little cakes. I used to make big cheesecakes before and it just seemed to take a long time and I was always worried about cracking it or screwing up the spring form pan. So take a look below and see how we created a perfect treat for mom.

Mini Chocolate Cheesecakes (makes 12)

*We adapted the recipe that we found at the Garnish and Glaze blog (http://www.garnishandglaze.com/2015/02/02/mini-triple-chocolate-cheesecakes/)

You will need...

A muffin pan with room for 12 muffins (if you have a couple smaller pans, they will work fine) and 12 cupcake liners.

12 Oreos and 2 tbsp. of melted butter for the crust.

12 ounces of cream cheese (1 and ½ blocks)

1 cup of semi-sweet melted chocolate chips

2/3 c of sweetened condensed milk

1 tsp. vanilla

2 eggs

For the Ganache and topping you will need...

1/3 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4c hot whipping cream

Fresh berries (we’ve used both strawberries and raspberries)

Whipped Cream

How to:

First of all preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Then line your muffin pan.

Food process the Oreo’s along with the melted butter. Press firmly into each liner.

Next you’re going to cream up the cream cheese until it’s all smooth because you don’t want chunks of cream cheese in the batter later on. Make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl a few times.

After that, mix in the milk, chocolate, vanilla and beat that until it is smooth. Again, I kept scraping down the sides of the bowl so that there were no leftover cream cheese chunks.

Next beat in the eggs one at a time.

Give it a good stir after all your ingredients have been mixed together and then evenly distribute the batter into the pan. Since it won’t rise in the oven, you can fill them up quite high.

Bake for 15-18 minutes. Both times we made them we put them in for the full amount of time, even a few extra minutes. You want to make sure they don’t jiggle in the pan.

Let them cool in the pans for 15 minutes and then place them on a cooling rack for 15 minutes more. After that, put them in the fridge for about an hour to completely cool. To be quite honest, when we made them the second time around, we just let them cool for a bit in the pans and then transferred them straight to the fridge and skipped the second part of cooling and they worked out fine!

Once they have been cooling for about an hour, you can prepare the ganache.

For the ganache you will need to measure the chocolate chips into a heat proof bowl. Then you can warm up the cream to the point of boiling and then pour over top of the chocolate chips. Give it a good stir and then let it sit, while you whip up the whipped cream, so that it gets a bit thicker. I found that using it right away allowed for it to run down the sides of the cakes and it made a mess, so while it thickens, whip of the rest of the cream and wash and dry your berries.

When you’re all set, you can decorate. Take one of the cakes and spread the ganache over top so that it just reaches the edge of the cake. Do this to all of them. You can let them set and harden in the fridge if you want to and don’t plan on eating them right away. Then you can put a dollop of whipped cream in the centre along with a berry or two and serve. Like I said, I found it easiest to decorate the ones that you want to eat right away and decorate the rest as you eat them because they can get a bit messy just hanging around the fridge with their toppings.
 

Another quick and easy treat to make is Chocolate Dipped Strawberries!

First, wash and dry your strawberries, you can also remove the green tops if you want to.

Next melt some chocolate, and dip the strawberries, we did some in white chocolate, and some with semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Drizzle with the other kind of chocolate (omit this step if you're only using one kind of chocolate).

Voila! Yummy Chocolate Strawberries!