Cookies & Cream Cheesecakes

At work, I've made it clear that if anyone has a recipe that they feel needs to be seen, to run it by me and I'll see what I can do. My first subtle hint was a printout of a cookies 'n' cream mini-cheesecake recipe. The recipe that was printed out involved sour cream, which I didn't discover until I sat down to actually look at it once I was home, and I rarely have sour cream in my house since the only person who will eat it is my husband. So, being the diligently wonderful coworker I am, I searched for a cookies N cream cheesecake recipe that involved ingredients I already had on hand, and I came up with this. Since I don't have a spring form pan (yet!), and several coworkers aren't big on the possibility of other people touching their food, I adapted it to be cupcake sized, like the one I had dropped on my desk. Normally, when I make something to take into work with me, I generally use my mini muffin pan. It makes more, and people feel less guilty about eating one small one than a regular size one. However, the recipe dropped on my desk was clever. Too clever.. It used a whole Oreo as the crust. That particular bit put into my head made me a bit too lazy to dig out my food processor to crush some up into an actual crust. Therefore, sorry coworkers, you'll get fat from my cheesecakes on Monday, or you'll learn to share. I'm too lazy to make them smaller. 


Okay. Onto the recipe. The original is slightly more cream cheese than I had (called for 4, I had 3.. Master of adaptation!). This is my slightly smaller version, it made 22 cupcake-sized cheesecakes. 




Ingredients:


30 Oreos, divided
24oz cream cheese, softened (3 pkgs)
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs


Directions:


Preheat oven to 325º. Line cupcake pans with 22 liners, and place one whole Oreo in the bottom of each. 


In a large mixing bowl, cream the softened cream cheese. Add sugar and vanilla, mix well.  Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well in between. 

Rough chop the remaining 8 Oreos, add to the cheesecake batter. You can either fold them in, if you'd like larger pieces, but I just blended the pieces in with my mixer to make them slightly smaller. (Yes, I FINALLY got an electric mixer! I'm in LOVE.)


Place 1/4 cup of the batter in each liner. I use my 1/4 cup measuring cup for a lot of things, but the 1/4 cup was the perfect amount with the Oreos in the bottom. 


Bake for 25-30 minutes, until set. I use a water bath in the oven (just a pan with some water) to keep the moisture, but I'm not sure that it affects cooking time. It's supposed to help with the cracking on top of cheesecakes, and I have to admit, I do see less cracking when I use it than when I don't. I will someday master the crack-less cheesecake. Someday.. 

Later, I will post pictures of the inside, if I remember to nab a picture before hubby destroys one. I will also post reviews within the next few days!