Cook With Cat: Mini Strawberry Cheesecake!

Hello Friends!  Like I mentioned two posts ago about wanting to share new things, I'm here with a new topic that I've always wanted to write about and that is... FOOD!  I love food and I love cooking, baking, eating, and all the other verbs that you associate with food, which I why I want to share my favorite recipes and hopefully you can try them out too!

For my first Cook With Cat, I wanted to share one of my absolute favorite desserts, CHEESECAKE! This cheesecake recipe however, isn't you average springform pan, baked cheesecake.  Nope, nope, nope.  It's a no bake, mini cheesecake recipe!  I've made variations of this recipe, but this is the first time I made this, and it turned out really good!  This specific recipe yields about 3 cupcake sized cheesecakes, but of course you can modify it based on how many you need.  I thought three was the perfect size because I'm a college student aka I don't need to make a whole giant cheesecake because I would probably end up devouring the entire thing.  It's a cute lil personal cheesecake!  It's an extremely convenient recipe because it uses ingredients that you probably have lying around.  Let's get on with the recipe!

Oh also, since this is the first time I'm writing this type of post, I'm still working on how I want to format it and working on taking better photos, hope you understand!!

Mini Strawberry Cheesecake!

Yields: 3 Cupcake Sized Cheesecakes
Cooking Time: Depends on how fast you move tbh

Ingredients:
2 Sugar Ice Cream Cones (or graham crackers, Oreos, whatever you want really)
1 Tbs Melted Butter
1 1/2 Tbs Strawberry Cream Cheese (or plain, whatever you're feeling)
1 Tbs-ish Granulated OR Powdered Sugar
2 Tbs Thawed Cool Whip
1/8 tsp Vanilla Extract
Cute AF Cupcake Cases

Directions:
1. Take your ice cream cones and put them in a Ziplock bag.  Since the ice cream cones were pretty fragile, I just slammed the bag on my cutting board until they were nice and crushed.  If there's any larger pieces you want to crush more, just take a wooden spoon and hit it a few times.  You don't want it to be super fine, but not super chunky either.  It should look kinda like this after you're done crushing them.

2. Pour your cone crumbs into a bowl and mix in the melted butter.  Mix it until its moist and crumbly.  A good way to know if you need more butter is to take the flatter side of the spoon and give the crumbs a good press; if they flatten nicely then it's probably ready, but if it seems too dry, you might need more butter.

3. Grab your cupcake cases and distribute your crumbs evenly into each case.  Using the back of your spoon or clean hands, press down the crust until it seems solid like ya I can hold up this cheesecake deliciousness.  Once your crust is ready, place them into the freezer to set.  No set time for this, just leave them in there until you're done making the filling.

4. In a new bowl, or you can use the same one if you're lazy, combine your cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until it's nice and smooth.  I used the spreadable kind of cream cheese so it was pretty easy to smooth, but if you're using that block on cream cheese, make sure it's room temperature because that block always be giving me trouble.

It should look like this

5. Once your cream cheese is all smooth, fold in the Cool Whip until completely combine.  TBH I totally stirred it in cause whose actually got time to stand there and fold things in.  At this point, you can probably taste it and decide if you want more sugar, Cool Whip, maybe more vanilla, it's up to you and how your tongue is feeling.

6. Lastly, grab your crust out of the freezer and spoon in your filling evenly into each crust.  Use the back of your spoon or finger, whatever, to smooth it out and then place them in the fridge to set for two hours or over night.  You can expedite this part by putting it in the freezer for an hour or two.

And you're done!  You can decorate them with more Cool Whip or good tasting whipped cream cause let's be honest, Cool Whip tastes like garbage, but power to you if you actually like it.  I put some cute little sprinkles on mine and forgot to take pictures of the final product because let's be real I was hungry.  Keep this cheesecakes refrigerated until you're ready to chow.

I hope you enjoyed this recipe!  I want to do more cooking and food related posts because I actually bake and cook quite often.  If you try out this recipe, tweet me photos @thecaitlynlee on Twitter and use #CookWithCat!  I'm excited to see them!

Thanks for reading! Happy eating!

Love, Cat <3