Mini Vanilla Bean Cheesecakes

in Cakes & Cupcakes

Tahitian Vanilla Cheesecake

I love cheesecake. It’s my favorite dessert that I never make at home. Ever. It just doesn’t make much sense to have that big of a dessert for two people. All that cream cheese baked into a single dish constantly tempting me with its sweet siren song from the fridge. I swoon at the very thought.

Enter the the mini cheesecake pan.

You know the kind – the tin with twelve single-serving cheesecake cups with the removable bottom. I have lusted after this pan for months. The servings aren’t too large (throwing three pounds of half-eaten cream cheese away is borderline sinful) and you can customize the flavor of each individual cake with one spoonful of an extra ingredient rather than baking 6 different desserts. The mini-dessert really might be the greatest invention ever.

Tahitian Vanilla

Mini Vanilla Bean Cheesecakes

Mini vanilla cheesecakes studded with vanilla bean flecks.

Ingredients

  • For the crust:
  • 1 cup graham crackers (approximately 15 crackers), crushed
  • pinch of salt
  • 2 Tbsp sugar
  • 2 Tbsp melted butter
  • For the filling:
  • 1/4 cup heavy cream
  • 1 vanilla pod
  • 16 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • pinch of salt

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter the bottoms and sides of the mini cheesecake pan (baking spray works well, too).
  2. Give the graham crackers a spin in the food processor until finely crushed. Add salt, sugar, and pulse a couple of times to mix. Stream in melted butter until a course crumb forms. Divide evenly among the 12 cups and press into the bottoms of the cheesecake pan. Place in oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool completely. Reduce oven temperature to 300.
  3. Add heavy cream to a small saucepan. Split and scrape the vanilla pod and add the pod halves and beans to the cream. Warm on low heat until steaming. Let cool to warm. On low speed, mix cream cheese until smooth (about 3 minutes). Increase speed to medium and add one egg at a time. Scrape down the bowl after each egg and mix completely. Pour cooled cream, vanilla, sugar, and salt and mix on medium for 2-3 minutes, until completely mixed.
  4. Spoon mixture into the prepared cheesecake pan, filling each cup to the top. Bake for 20-23 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack and then move to the fridge to chill for 2 hours. Remove the cheesecakes from the pan (my pan came with a short dowel to push the cakes up through the removable bottom) and serve.
  5. Notes: My pan came with a basic recipe for crust and "plain" filling. 1 cup of graham crackers makes way too much crust. The cheesecake crusts were quite thick and I hadn't even used all of the mixture. Next time, I'll reduce the crust recipe.

Notes

Yields: 12 servings

Estimated time: 3 hours

17 comments… add one
  • These look great!!! I have been wanting that pan too – lucky!

  • Your cheesecakes look and sound delicious! I love my mini cheesecake pan.

  • mmmmm this looks sooo good….
    like your blog….I will be back.
    🙂

  • These look beautiful! I share your sentiments about cheesecake exactly, and I think I need to invest in one of these pans 🙂

  • Katie

    Oh my gosh. You are my idol. These look AAAAAAmazing. I love cheesecake to death and these mini ones are just too cute!

  • Kate

    These really are some fantastically beautiful cheesecakes!

  • I really need to keep my eye out for this mini cheesecake tin that everyone seems to have, its one thing that my local kitchen supply stores don’t seem to have! 🙁

  • Deborah

    I really need to find one of those pans!! The bad thing about making a whole cheesecake in my house is that the two of us WOULD eat the whole thing!!

  • bakingblonde

    Those look so cute. I can’t wait to try them sometime. Cheesecake is one of my all time fave desserts.

  • So cute! They sound fantastic too. Mmm, vanilla…

  • I love the minis and love these cakes. Makes you not feel so bad when you eat 5 of them.

  • my husband and I have the same problem with too much dessert left over. I have some 4″ springform pans which makes about enough for four small (or should we say appropriate?) servings, but I have never seen the mini pan! I will have to add it to “the list”. They look like the perfect size.

  • Fabulous! Like the others, I haven’t been able to find a mini cheesecake pan. While I am dying to find one, its probably a good thing for the time being….as I would eat all my mistakes! 🙂

  • cora

    is it not advised to just use cup cake papers for these?

  • Mandy

    The recipe instructions only say to add 1/4 cup cream to the filling, but the recipe ingredients has 1/4 cup heavy cream and 1/4 cup cream listed as two separate ingredients. Am I supposed to add 1/4 cup heavy cream as well as another 1/4 cup cream as stated in the list of ingredients? Or was it listed twice on accident?

    • Thanks for letting me know, I fixed it so that (hopefully) it’s clearer now.

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