Individual Mini Egg Cheesecakes

These individual no bake Mini Egg cheesecakes are the perfect dessert for your Easter celebration this year. Cadbury Mini Eggs are folded into a simple vanilla cheesecake batter made with cream cheese, white chocolate, and whipped cream. The batter is spooned over a graham cracker crust inside of a lined muffin pan and chilled until set. These little cheesecakes can even be made ahead of time to make life easy and taste as just sweet as they look.

How to make Mini Egg cheesecakes:

Ingredients you'll need:

For the crust

• 9 graham crackers (1 cup crushed)
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt

For the No Bake Mini Egg Filling

• ¾ cup of heavy whipping cream, cold
• 8 oz of cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon of sour cream
• ⅓ cup of granulated sugar
• 3 oz of white chocolate (not chips), melted and slightly cooled
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1 teaspoon of lemon juice
• ¾ cup (about 48) whole Cadbury Mini Eggs from a 9oz bag

For The Nest Topping

• ½ cup of shredded sweetened coconut
• 24 whole Cadbury Mini Eggs

Instructions:

Prepare the crust for the cheesecakes

Line a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners and set it aside.

In the bowl of a food processor, add the graham crackers and sugar and process until fine crumbs.

Add in the melted butter and pulse until the crumbs are evenly moistened and will clump together when squeezed in your hand.

Distribute the crumbs among the 12 muffin cups. It'll be about 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon of crumbs per muffin cavity.

Using the bottom of a clean glass, tamp down the crumbs until they are even and compact.

Pop the muffin pan in the freezer while you make the cheesecake batter.

Making the Mini Egg cheesecake batter:

Measure out ¾ cup (about 48) of the Cadbury Mini Eggs and place them in a thick Ziploc bag. Using a sturdy measuring cup, rolling pin, or heavy pot, crush the candies into small pieces. The pieces should be slightly smaller than a standard sized chocolate chip. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, add the cold heavy cream.

Whip the cream on medium speed until it starts foaming, then turn up the speed to medium high and continue whipping until the cream has reached stiff peaks, about 2 minutes. You'll know the cream is ready when the cream stands straight up on the end of the beater without drooping.

Carefully spoon the whipped cream into another bowl and pop it in the fridge.

Return the whisk attachment and bowl to the stand mixer. Do not wash.

Add the cream cheese to the mixer bowl and whip at medium speed until smooth.

Add 1 tablespoon of sour cream and whip to combine. Give the sides and bottom of the bowl a scrape with a rubber spatula.

Pour in the sugar and beat until fully incorporated.

Next, add in the melted white chocolate and give a quick mix to combine.

Add your lemon juice and vanilla extract. Give the bowl another scrape with a rubber spatula and then one final mix on the mixer to ensure everything is fully incorporated and smooth.

Fold in the whipped cream and Mini Eggs

Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and grab the whipped cream from the fridge. Gently spoon the whipped cream onto the cream cheese filling. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the cream until almost completely integrated.

Pour the crushed Cadbury Mini Eggs into the batter.

Finish folding gently until no more streaks of whipped cream are showing, and the candy eggs are evenly distributed.

Fill the muffin cups

Remove the graham cracker crusts from the freezer. Gently spoon the filling over the crusts. Make sure to spread the batter all the way to the sides of each muffin cavity to prevent any gaps between the bottom of the batter and the crust. Fill the center of each cup slightly above the muffin liners with the cheesecake batter.

Tip: I spoon the batter up the sides of the liners first and fill in the centers after. The batter should be slightly fuller in the center and just barely come up above the muffin liners.

Smooth out the tops of each cake and chill for a minimum of 4 hours, but overnight is best.

Make the topping for the Cheesecakes:

To make the little nest topping for the Mini Egg cheesecakes, start by toasting your coconut flakes.

In a cold, dry skillet, add the sweetened coconut. Toast the coconut over medium to medium low heat, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Toast until the coconut is crisp and golden brown, about 6-7 minutes.

Remove the coconut from the heat and set aside to cool.

Once the cheesecakes are fully chilled, you can take them out of the muffin pan and set them on your final serving dish.

You can also remove the muffin liners at this time, or feel free to leave them on if you prefer that look. If you are removing the liners, do it while the cakes are still cold.

Top the center of each cheesecake with a heaping teaspoon of the toasted coconut. Use your finger to make a little depression in the center of each coconut pile and add 1-2 Mini Cadbury Eggs to make a"nest".

Serve the cheesecakes immediately or return them to the fridge to stay chilled until ready to serve.

HOW LONG WILL Mini Egg CHEESECAKEs KEEP?

These Mini Egg cheesecakes will keep for a good 6-7 days in the fridge. Over time, the graham cracker crust will soften a bit, but the cakes will still remain solid enough to remove the wrappers easily and eat with your hands!

Make sure to store your leftover cheesecakes in an airtight container.

Can you freeze no bake cheesecake?

Yes! These cheesecakes freeze beautifully.

To freeze, keep the muffin papers on and transfer the cakes to an air tight, freezer safe container. Pop the cheesecakes into the freezer and store them for weeks until ready to eat!

When you're ready to serve, just take out however many cakes you need and allow them to thaw in the fridge until soft enough to eat (about an hour). You can either peel off the paper liners when they're frozen or after they thaw.

Will the no bake filling stick to the muffin papers?

Nope!

As long as the cakes have chilled long enough, the wrappers will remove cleanly from the cheesecakes.

Tip: When you're pulling away the liners, make sure to hold each cheesecake from the bottom crust. No bake cheesecake filling is softer than a baked cheesecake filling, so you don't want to squish the sides of the cakes with your fingers.

Also, remove the wrappers right after you take the cakes out of the fridge. As the filling comes up to room temperature, the cakes will soften making it harder to take the paper liners off cleanly.

Troubleshooting:

WHY IS MY NO BAKE CHEESECAKE NOT FIRM?

In general, a no bake cheesecake is not as firm as a traditional baked cheesecake. This recipe will produce individual cheesecakes that are firm enough to remove the muffin papers without the cakes losing shape or the filling running out.

However, if you find that your cake did not set, here are some areas that may have gone wrong:

• The cakes haven't chilled long enough. These individual Mini Egg cheesecakes need a minimum of 4 hours in the fridge-- but overnight is preferred. A long chill session will ensure that both the edges and the centers of the cakes are completely set and will hold their shape when removed from the muffin pan.
• The whipped cream was not whipped stiff enough. If the heavy cream was not whipped to stiff peaks, then there was not enough air incorporated to stabilize the cream and fat. Without enough air, the cream will just collapse over time and get runny. As a result, the cheesecakes will have a softer set filling. There's a whole science to whipping cream-- you can read about it here if you'd like!
• The whipped cream was not folded into the filling properly. The folding technique allows whipped ingredients (like whipped cream) to be gently incorporated into other (heavier) ingredients without deflating the air we whipped into them. However, if your whipped cream was improperly folded into the cream cheese mixture, the air may have been knocked out causing the whipped cream to deflate--and that would impact the cheesecake filling. If you've never folded ingredients into batters before, this video is a great tutorial for the folding technique!

Tips for making the best mini egg cheesecakes:

• Make sure your cream is super cold and whipped to stiff peaks. If the cream is too warm, it won't whip up stiff enough. And if the cream isn't whipped enough, the batter may fall or become too dense or runny.
• Crush your eggs into small pieces. you want to crush your Mini Eggs into pieces slightly smaller than a standard sized chocolate chip. You don't want dust, but you want the candy pieces small enough to allow the cheesecake batter to fill the muffin cup easily.
• Make sure your white chocolate isn't too hot before adding it to the cream cheese mixture. You may run the risk of melting the cheese if the chocolate is too hot.
• Freeze the crust. This helps to give you a sturdy base without baking!
• Chill for the recommended time. Under chilling will cause the cakes to become too soft and not pull away from the paper wrapper.
• Overfill your muffin cups. The batter should come up just slightly above the muffin liner. This is to replicate how a baked cheesecake will rise in the oven. Generously filling each muffin cup will give you the perfect crust to filling ratio.

Other Recipes You Might Like:

Mini Egg Cookies

Mini Strawberry Cheesecakes

No Bake Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake

No Bake Chocolate Cheesecake