Pumpkin Chocolate Swirled Mini Cheesecakes with a Spiced Graham Crust

Pumpkin Chocolate Swirled Mini Cheesecakes with a Spiced Graham Crust

Another belated post...my apologizes we've been rather absent on the blog. The days are flying by faster than I can bake everything on my autumn bake-list. Since squash is the flavour of autumn, I wanted to incorporate pumpkin into the Halloween treats shared with Fat Rats. And everyone likes cheesecake right? I beat The Clumsy One at making these, mwahahaha~

Pumpkin Chocolate Swirled Mini Cheesecakes with a Spiced Graham Crust

-Insert ranting here- 

I actually put that in my draft... but there isn't much on my mind today, so you're in luck! Reduced amount of nonsense in this post.

Pumpkin Chocolate Swirled Mini Cheesecakes with a Spiced Graham Crust

The spiced graham crust can be substituted with gingersnap cookies, as that is what I was aiming to copy. The hint of extra spices amps up the volume of the spices already in the cheesecake batter. I admit, the chocolate swirl doesn't do much for the cake, other than make it look prettier. Feel free to leave the extra step out if it is going to be topped with whipped cream (coconut whipped cream, anyone?) or decorated with other methods. Either way, it'll be sure to impress and satisfy~

The gradual cooling of cheesecake is a vital part of the procedure, especially when making larger sizes. I still experienced a little bit of cracking on these mini cheesecakes and felt that they were just a tinge on the over-cooked side. If that is a concern for you, stop the oven about two minutes earlier and begin the process of cooling.

Pumpkin Chocolate Swirled Mini Cheesecakes with a Spiced Graham Crust

Yield: 12 muffin-sized cheesecakes

Ingredients

For the crust

• 5 graham crackers (the long rectangular shaped ones)
• A pinch each of ground ginger and nutmeg
• ⅛ tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tbsp coconut oil, melted

For the filling

• 8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature (low fat is okay) 
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup pumpkin puree
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ⅛ tsp each of ground ginger and nutmeg
• 1 egg
• ½ vanilla
• 2 tsp coconut milk
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350˚F. Line a standard muffin pan with twelve paper liners.
2. Blitz your graham crackers in a food processor to make crumbs. Add the spices and pulse a few times to combine. Add the melted coconut oil to the crumbs and mix until a wet sand texture is achieved. 
3. Press 2 to 3 tsp of the crumb mixture firmly into the bottom of each paper liner, I recommend using the back of a small spoon.
4. Bake crust in the preheated oven for 4 minutes.
5. In a mixing bowl, cream the cream cheese and brown sugar together until homogenous and fluffy.
6. Add the pumpkin puree and spices, mix until smooth. 
7. Add egg, vanilla, and coconut milk and mix again until smooth.
8. Reserve about 3 tbsp of the cheesecake batter in a separate bowl. Add cocoa powder to the reserved batter. Set aside.
9. Divide pumpkin cheesecake batter evenly between liners. Place dollops of the chocolate cheesecake batter on top and swirl with a toothpick.
10. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes. When done, prop the oven door open slightly and allow cheesecakes to cool in the oven for about 10 minutes. The cool completely on the counter in the pan before chilling in the fridge. Bringing the cheesecakes gradually to room temperature will prevent cracking. 
11. Once completely cooled, store in refrigerator. They last for quite a while, around a week or two?

Love from Coconut Crumpet's Corner ♡

Strawberry Swirled Mini Ricotta Cheesecakes

Here comes another birthday post! This time for my very best friend Az, whom was featured with the glorious chicken wings at Phnom Pehn. Strawberries and cheesecake are two of her favourite foods, so that's what I planned as her birthday cake. But with a twist!

Strawberry Swirled Mini Ricotta Cheesecakes

Unlike my Berry Swirl Cheesecake or Mocha Cheesecake Squares, there are two types of cheeses in this cake, cream cheese and ricotta. The addition of ricotta creates a texture that is much lighter and fluffier. On the cheesiness scale, I'd place these mini cheesecakes between a New York cheesecake and a Japanese cheesecake, but closer to the Japanese one. It's not as spongy as it's Japanese relative, just a bit cheesier.  Perhaps my cheesecakes like puns... (Okay, that was a really bad joke. Just for you, Peanut Crumpet =___=;;)

Fresh Summer Strawberries

The simple strawberry sauce can easily be substituted by almost any other flavours. Other fruits such as blackberries would work beautifully (check out my blackberry + ricotta recipe) or richer flavours like peanut butter or chocolate could be used too! To do so, reserve a bit of cheesecake batter to mix in a generous scoopful of peanut butter, cocoa powder, or whatever flavour your heart desires. To create the heart-shaped swirls, simply dot a few blobs of sauce over the raw batter and drag a toothpick through the centre depending on which direction you wish the hearts to go. A simple yet impressive design!

More fresh strawberries!

To amp up the aroma of these individual cheesecakes, I toasted some almonds to whiz in with the crust. Hiding it in the crust is a discrete way to add another element to the dessert; my mom suddenly asked me "what did you put in the crust?" She definitely knew it wasn't the basic graham cracker crust, but couldn't quite put her finger on what was different.

Strawberry Swirled Mini Ricotta Cheesecakes

These muffin-sized miniature cheesecakes make it clean to pack to work or school for a snack or to share at a party. The paper liner doesn't stick at all once the cake has thoroughly been cooled. Clean and easy to eat, -thumbs up-

Ready to dig into my serving of Strawberry Ricotta Cheesecake

Serving these mini cheesecakes with a generous dollop of the swirling sauce is an easy way to not only use up the leftover sauce, but to strengthen the strawberry flavour. Because, realistically, seven drips of strawberry sauce doesn't stand out much when the cheese flavour is so prominent.

Click below for the recipe!

3rd Tier: Mocha Cheesecake Squares, Coconut Muffin, and Green Tea Cream Puff

DIY Mother's Day High Tea at Coconut Crumpet's Home

As a dessertatarian, this is obviously the most exciting tier. The fact that I prepared an excess amount of each recipe didn't really bother me. That meant I would have dessert to last me a week, mwahahaha! There were a few bumps along the way during my baking of these desserts. A malfunctioning convection oven, running out of all purpose flour, burning this, burning that... Nevertheless, the guests didn't notice so let's just keep it between us, ok?