My Cheesecake Bites are the most requested cookies that I make and bring to work. This week was no exception. Everyone wanted some fruit, and lemons made the top of the list. We needed to balance out all the chocolate that has been around my workplace for Valentine's Day, or should I say the whole month.
The fruit section of the grocery store is my favorite place to explore. The lemons look great, and so did the raspberries. Raspberries can be tart, but I think with cream cheese, it balances out the tartness. I said to myself; this will be a great combo of flavors. Question of the day; do people like the taste of lemons, or does their body for some unknown reason know lemons are good for them? I found this web site that gave a perfect explanation of the Benefits of Lemons.
When making these cheesecake bites, I like to add a nut to the honey graham cracker. Any nut gives it a little more flavor to the crust. I decided to go with hazelnuts. I don't get to use this nut as much as I would like, but it will be perfect for this recipe.
Raspberry Lemon Cheesecake Bites
Barbara HallIngredients
CRUST
- 1 box Pamela's Honey Grahams Graham crackers
- ½ cup Hazelnuts
- ⅓ cup Melted butter unsalted
- 1 tablespoon Sugar white
LEMON CHEESECAKE FILLING
- 16 oz. Cream Cheese 2 bars
- ¼ cup Sugar white
- ½ cup Condensed milk
- ½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 2 Eggs
- ¼ cup Lemon juice 2 lemons
- 1 heaping tablespoon Lemon zest
- 12 oz Fresh raspberries
Instructions
CRUST
- In a food processor, add the hazelnuts and pulse till small pieces. Add the whole box of Pamela's Honey Grahams to the hazelnut and pulse till they are small pieces. They should be about the same size in the bowl. Transfer the hazelnut graham cracker mix to a bowl. Add the sugar and the melted butter and using a fork mix till the butter is through all the hazelnut graham cracker mix.
- Line an 8X8 baking dish with tin foil (make sure it comes up all sides of the baking dish). You don't want the cheesecake mixture to run down behind the tin foil. Pour the crust onto the tin foil and evenly press down so that it covers the whole bottom of the baking dish. Set the baking dish aside.
LEMON CHEESECAKE FILLING
- Preheat oven to 325° Zest the two lemons, so you have a heaping tablespoon of lemon zest. Then juice both lemons into another bowl to get ¼ cup of lemon juice and set both the dishes aside. In a stand or hand-held mixer, mix the cream cheese and the sugar till the sugar is incorporated (about 2 minutes on medium speed). Add one egg at a time. Then add the condensed milk, lemon juice, lemon zest, and the vanilla extract and blend thoroughly. The mixture will be on the thin side, but it thickens while it bakes. Pour the mixture over the crust and shake it a little to let any air bubbles come to the top.
- Wash and dry your raspberries. When I make my cookies or cheesecake bites, I share with a lot of people, so I placed my raspberries reasonably close so I could cut small squares of the cheesecake the next day. This way, I have plenty for everyone. So depending on how you want to cut your squares, arrange your raspberries accordingly — Bake at 325° for 40 minutes. You don't want it to jiggle too much, but do it gently to test. Let it cool for about half an hour then cover loosely and refrigerate overnight.
- I am grabbing the tinfoil edges to lift the whole thing out of the pan. The tinfoil comes off easily. I lift one side up a little and pull the tinfoil away from the bottom crust. Cut the cheesecake bites into whatever size squares you like.
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