Lemon Curd Mini Cheesecakes
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For your Easter consideration
These Lemon Curd Mini Cheesecakes are so much fun for Easter Sunday! The cheesecake filling is super creamy and the lemon curd well, super lemony, as you can tell by how much that bright yellow color is screaming! A super fluffy meringue on top works as the perfect canvas for Easter decorations. They are simply adorable! A perfect make ahead dessert for Easter and super easy to put together!
If you’ve been around here, you know I’m a bit lazy when it comes to creating elaborate decorations. Probably a combination of laziness and lack of skills in reality because to tell you the truth, I don’t know much about highly specialized techniques to make fancy candy decorations. What I love to do is to use cool and pretty candies as I did here. I used finely chopped dark chocolate to make the “nest” (well, sort of) and use a truffle egg to place it on top of each mini cheesecake.
No matter if you are an expert making cheesecakes or if it’s the first time you are going to try one, these are pretty forward to make. The classical graham cracker crust, a simple cheesecake filling, an easy to make lemon curd and the meringue which is kind of optional but totally necessary if you ask me! The recipe is the same as my Lemon Curd Cheesecake Tart, I just made half the recipe and without the basil. The meringue is the same I made on my White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake. The two egg whites come from the cheesecake filling and the lemon curd, which both call for 1 egg yolk as their main ingredient.
If you don’t have a mini cheesecake pan with removable bottoms (like this one linked here) you can make the original recipe in a regular tart shell pan. Pile the meringue on top and decorate with chocolate shavings and the truffle eggs. Another options as one reader suggested below is baking them in a regular cupcake or muffin pan. Use cupcake liner to be able to remove them easily. And no matter the format, you should make these at least the day before you are planning on serving them, two days even better!
These are the steps you will be following when making these cuties:
Making Lemon Curd Mini Cheesecakes
First and foremost: Start by taking out the cream cheese and the rest of the other cheesecake chilled ingredients to let them soften and come down to room temperature. You may warm up one or two times the cream cheese for 15 seconds in the microwave in power 5 or 6 to make it very spreadable. Store egg white in a plastic storage bag (do this when separating the egg for the lemon curd as well). Chill in the fridge until ready to use (it can be overnight in the fridge).
Nice and hot: Preheat oven to 350° at this point.
Time to make the crust: I did half recipe of my basic graham cracker crust.
Time to fill: fill each tin with a scant tablespoon of the crumbs. Use a tamper or any flat and long utensil to flatten out the crust on the bottom. You can use a slightly wet pastry brush or your finger wrapped in a slightly wet paper towel to clean the crumbs on the inside walls of the tins. Bake for 5 minutes. Remember to increase oven temperature to 425° when you take the pan out.
Make the cheesecake batter and fill each tin with about ¼ cup of batter. Bake for 3 minutes and then decrease oven temperature to 275° and bake for 10 minutes. Let them chill a bit before placing in the fridge for about 30 minutes to an hour to make the top chilled.
Make lemon curd and pour about half a tablespoon of it over chilled cheesecakes, filling the tin to the top. Chill for 6 to 8 hours, preferably overnight.
A tricky step: be careful removing the mini cheesecakes from the bottom. This is where the adrenaline will rush because you need to take the mini cheesecake out but you don’t want to touch it so much to bruise the filling. I sprayed each tin with a bit of baking spray before filling them. I also passed a small pairing knife around the lemon curd area, without bringing it too deep. Push up the bottom of each tin and carefully catch the cheesecake with the other hand, trying to handle it from the crust area as much as you can. Some of the bottoms will probably detach on their own and that’s ok, it’s up to you if you want to remove them at this point or wait until serving to prevent the cheesecakes form crumbling.
Ready for your belly: When you’re about to serve, make the Italian meringue. Using a pastry bag or a large spoon drop the Italian meringue on top. Decorate with chopped dark chocolate and a chocolate Easter egg.
Now off I go! Heading for a bit of a vacation this Holy Week, so this post is short but super sweet! No matter where you will be, hope these days are all about love and reflecting on how blessed we are, and also putting our hearts and prayers on those who desperately need it the most these days. A very happy Easter Yellow Butterfly peeps!
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Lemon Curd Mini Cheesecakes
Ingredients
Basic Graham Cracker Crust
◯ Unsalted butter – 5 TBSP
◯ Traditional graham crackers – 6 whole rectangular crackers, broken in small pieces (about 4 oz.)
◯ Raw or granulated sugar - 1 ½ TBSP
Lemon Cheesecake Filling
◯ Cream cheese, at room temperature – 2 - 8 oz packages
◯ Raw sugar – ¾ cup
◯ Organic cage free eggs – 2, large
◯ Egg yolks– 1, from large egg
◯ Unbleached organic all purpose flour – 1 ½ TBSP
◯ Lemon juice – 1 ½ TBSP, about the juice of half a medium lemon
◯ Pure vanilla extract – ½ Tsp
Lemon Curd Layer
◯ Whole organic egg – 1
◯ Egg yolk – 1
◯ Raw sugar – ¼ cup + 2 TBSP
◯ Lemon zest (optional) - from 1 medium lemon
◯ Freshly squeezed lemon juice – ¼ cup
◯ Butter, cubed – 4 TBSP (½ stick)
Italian Meringue
◯ Egg whites, at room temperature – 2 (if using just one, reduce by half the rest of the ingredients and the whipping time. Water and sugar cooking time remains the same.)
◯ Lemon juice – ¼ tsp, plus a lemon wedge to rub the wire attachment and bowl.
◯ Raw sugar – ½ cup
◯ Water – ¼ cup
Details
Yield:
12 mini cheesecakes
Total time:
30 minutes plus 30 minutes chilling time for the cheesecake, 25 minutes plus 6 to 8 hours chilling time for the already assembled mini cheesecakes, 10 for the Italian meringue
Prep time:
10 minutes for the cheesecake, 10 minutes for the lemon curd, 10 minutes for the meringue
Baking time:
5 minutes for the crust, 10 minutes for the cheesecakes
Equipment:
Mini cheesecake pan, stand mixer or electric hand mixer, large bowl and skillet, candy thermometer (only for the meringue)
Steps
To make the crust:
Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly spray each tin from the mini cheesecake pan with baking spray.
In a small saucepan place the 5 tablespoons of butter and heat in medium to low heat. Retire from heat right after the butter has melted.
Break the crackers in pieces while you throw them in the bowl. Add the 1 ½ tablespoons of sugar and run the processor until the cookies are mostly grounded. With the processor running pour butter through the food processor lid opening, until the crumbs look hydrated, about 10 to 15 seconds. Stop the processor and pull down any crumbs crawling up the walls of the bowl if necessary and pulse a few seconds more.
Transfer crumbs to mini cheesecake tins. Using a tamper press crumbs very tightly. Use a slightly wet pastry brush or paper towel to clean up crumbs that remain on the inside wall of the tins. Bake for 5 to 6 minutes. Take it out of the oven to let it cool down.
Increase oven temperature to 425° and place a square or rectangular oven dish with hot water in the bottom rack of your oven.
To make the cheesecake filling:
While the crust is baking, start making the cheesecake batter. Either in the bowl of a stand up mixer and using the whisk attachment or in a large bowl using an electric hand mixer with the beaters attached, beat in medium speed the cream cheese for 2 minutes. Add the ¾ cup of sugar and mix for 1 minute, making sure there is no sugar on the bottom of the bowl. Decrease speed to low and add the 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk, one at a time. Add the 2 tablespoons of flour, the 1 ½ tablespoon of lemon juice and the ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract, waiting a few seconds before each addition to allow each ingredient to incorporate. Scrap the wall and bottom of the bowl between additions. Mix about 30 seconds to one minute, until mixture looks homogeneous and there are no big lumps of cream cheese.
Using a measuring cup, pour about ¼ cup of mixture in individual mini tins. Place mini cheesecake pan in a baking sheet.
When the oven is already in 425°, place cheesecakes in it and bake for 3 minutes. Drop oven temperature to 275° and bake for about 10 minutes, until the cheesecake looks set and dry around the edges but slightly jiggly and shiny in the center. Retire from oven and let it cool down until they have lost the steam. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
To make the lemon curd:
Fill a large skillet with water until half thru and bring water to light boil over medium low heat.
In a medium glass bowl whisk throughly the eggs and the egg yolk with the ¼ cup + 2 tablespoons of sugar, the lemon zest and the ¼ cup of lemon juice, until the eggs have completely mixed and the sugar has dissolved. Place the bowl on the skillet and using a wooden spoon stir slowly but almost constantly until the mixture thickens, this could take from 10 to 15 minutes. When the mixture heats it will produce some foamy white streaks. When those streaks disappear the curd should thicken up in the next 5 minutes. You are looking for a mixture that makes a sheer cover to the back of a wooden spoon and when you run a finger through the mixture it will leave a clear pass.
Retire from heat and start adding the 4 tablespoons of butter, one cube at a time and gently mix until almost melted before adding the next one. Mix until all the butter is melted and then continue mixing for an extra minute to make the curd more airy and light. Pour about half a tablespoon over each mini cheesecake. Chill for 6 to 8 hours or preferably overnight.
If there’s any remaining lemon curd, store in an airtight jar in the fridge. It will be good for a few months.
To make the Italian meringue:
Make sure your bowl and whisk attachment is well cleaned and not greasy. Any grease will prevent egg whites from rising.
Rub the bottom and walls of your bowl and whisk attachment with half a lemon. Put the egg whites and the ¼ teaspoon of lemon juice in the bowl. Whisk in low speed for 30 seconds to distribute it and then increase the speed to medium (#4 in the Kitchen Aid), until soft peaks form.
In the meantime, combine the ¼ cup of water and the ½ of sugar in a small saucepan. Heat over high heat and cook until a candy thermometer reaches 240°, about three to four minutes.
With the mixer running, pour over the syrup in a thin stream without pausing. Whisk until the meringue reaches room temperature, 4 to 6 minutes. As soon as the bowl feels cool on the outside the meringue is ready to go.
