White Chocolate Raspberry Mini Cheesecakes

White Chocolate Raspberry Mini Cheesecakes! Doesn't that sound delicious? Well, it did to me. In my saved recipes, I have a delicious raspberry swirled cheesecake recipe. It is really tasty, but I wanted to create a 'white chocolate' version using the mini cheesecake pan.

Wanting to keep the crust light, 'shortbread cookies' seemed the right way to go. These are so easy to make! Only 5 ingredients away from some good cookies! After processing a few cookies for the cheesecake crusts, I displayed the leftover cookies on a platter under a clear cake dome. They did not last long.

To tell you the truth, most of the recipes for shortbread cookies tell you to roll the dough out on a lightly floured board. I don't do that. I use wax paper. You can easily divide the dough in half, put each half on a sheet of wax paper, form them into disks, refrigerate for a few minutes, and roll them out sandwiched between the wax papers.

No mess, no fuss. After cutting out the cookies, the scraps were all gathered into another ball, flattened, refrigerated for a few minutes, and cut into more cookies. It works perfectly.

Of course, you could buy some shortbread cookies but these are so quick, easy, and you already have the ingredients, right?

White Chocolate Raspberry Mini Cheesecakes

Crust:

3/4 cup ground Shortbread Cookies 1/4 cup ground Almonds 2 Tblsp. Sugar 1 pinch of Salt 2 Tblsp. unsalted butter, melted

Combine the cookie crumbs, ground almonds, sugar, salt, and melted butter. Divide evenly and press into the bottom of the mini cheesecake cups.

Bake from 8 - 10 minutes at 350°. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Turn the oven down to 300°.

Cheesecake batter: 1/4 cup White Chocolate chips 2 (8-oz.) bars of Cream Cheese 1/3 cup Sugar 1 pinch Salt 2 eggs 1/4 cup Heavy Cream 1/2 tsp. Vanilla 1/8 tsp. Almond Extract *Raspberry Jam

Melt the white chocolate chips with the heavy cream in a glass bowl in the microwave. * Microwave at 20-second intervals, stirring after each 20-seconds until the chips melt and can be stirred and the sauce is completely smooth. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth and creamy. Add the sugar and salt and mix thoroughly.

Add the eggs, one at a time, mix well after each addition. Add a little of the batter (about 1/3 cup) to the cooled melted chocolate cream mixture and stir well.

Add to the remainder of the batter and mix well. Mix in the vanilla and the almond extract.

Spoon the batter into mini cheesecake cups, filling cups half-full, on top of the prepared shortbread crust.

*Add 1/2 teaspoon of Raspberry Jam on top of the batter. Swirl with a pick through the batter, being careful not to disturb the crust.

Continue filling the cups with the cheesecake batter almost to the top.

Bake at 300° for 20 minutes.

***Since these mini cheesecake pans have a removable disk in the bottom of each cup, it is possible for some of the butter to seep through. Place a pan or tin foil on the oven rack below the rack the cheesecakes are on to catch any escaping butter.

White Chocolate Glaze:

3/4 cup white chocolate chips 1/2 cup Heavy Cream

2 Tblsp. Milk

Melt white chocolate chips, milk, and cream together in a glass measuring cup. Drizzle melted chocolate sauce over the cheesecakes before serving.

* Microwave at 20-second intervals, stirring after each 20-seconds until the chips melt and can be stirred and the sauce is completely smooth.

* My range has a warming burner, which works really well for melting chocolate and butter without over doing it. If you have one, it comes in handy. It's not as quick as the microwave but it takes the worry out of it. It's really nice when making cake pops, too.

Raspberry Sauce:

1/2 cup. frozen raspberries, thawed 1Tblsp. powdered sugar

Puree raspberries and sugar together in a food processor. If desired, strain seeds. Make a puddle on your serving plate, place mini cheesecakes on top, drizzle with white chocolate sauce before serving, and top with a fresh red raspberry.