In this video, Chef John shows you how to make his special summer recipe for red, white, and blue cheesecake bites. Using a muffin tin to mold and cook the miniature cheesecakes, coat the bottom of the tins with finely crushed graham crackers. After whipping together the cream cheese batter with lime zest, sugar, vanilla, flour, and eggs, pour it into the muffin tins. Once the cakes have been baked and chilled, garnish them with whipped cream, blueberries, and strawberries. They’re the ideal dessert for any Fourth of July celebration.
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00:00 Hello this is Chef John from FoodWishes.com with red, white, and blue
00:06 cheesecake bites. That's right I'm gonna show you how to make the world's
00:11 smallest cheesecake or at least close to the world's smallest cheesecake. And
00:16 while these would be great any time of the year, I think they're especially
00:19 perfect for summer. Alright I don't know about you, but after one hot dog, two
00:23 burgers, and three beers, I'm not sure I want to eat a whole slice of cheesecake.
00:27 But I think I could do one or two of these. And to get started the first
00:32 thing we'll do is crush up some graham crackers nice and fine, which this time
00:36 I'm gonna do with my hands, and then a potato masher. Okay I usually use a
00:41 plastic bag and bang it with a rolling pin, but those sharp crumbs always mess
00:45 up the bag and I can't use it again. So I thought I would take an extra minute or
00:49 two and try to do this without wasting a bag. Yes and I forgot how sharp and
00:54 painful these are if you try to break them with your hands, which is right when
00:57 I switch to the potato masher. And of course you can always use a food
01:01 processor, which is the fastest and easiest way to do it, but then you have
01:05 to clean it. But anyway it doesn't really matter as long as you end up with some
01:10 nice finely crushed crumbs. And then to this we will add some melted butter, some
01:15 white sugar, and then last but not least a little vanilla extract. And please use
01:20 the pure and the real. And that's it. We'll take a spoon and give this a mix,
01:24 and we will keep mixing until we have something that basically looks like wet
01:28 sand. Oh and a quick production note, I did the whole package of graham crackers,
01:33 which is gonna make about twice as much as you need for this recipe. But don't
01:37 worry in the written recipe I'll put exactly what you need. And then once
01:41 that's set, we'll want to go ahead and spray our mini muffin tins with some
01:45 nonstick spray. And once we've given each pan a little spritz, we'll take our
01:49 finger and make sure the insides are totally coated. And as we do that we want
01:53 to use the excess on the top of the pan, and we'll use that to grease the insides.
01:57 And then once those have been greased, we will transfer in about one slightly
02:01 rounded teaspoon into each. And by the way I should mention, you can use any
02:06 cookie you want. Alright the graham cracker is classic, but if you wanted to
02:11 you could use some chocolate cookies, or some shortbread cookies. That would work.
02:15 Alright as we say in the business, if it will crumb it will crust. And then once
02:21 we've transferred that in, and we've evened out any obvious uneven spots, we
02:25 will go ahead and take one pan and use it to press down the other, which is
02:30 gonna flatten our crumb crust perfectly, and should give us a nice even layer on
02:34 the bottom. So we'll do that with one pan and then the other. And then at this
02:39 point some folks bake these a little bit before they fill them, but I don't. I
02:43 don't think it makes any difference, or at least not enough to add an extra step.
02:47 So what we'll do is simply set those aside while we mix up our cheesecake
02:52 batter, which will start with one pound of room-temp cream cheese. And then to
02:57 this we will add the zest of one lime, or if you want lemon, or orange, or any
03:01 combination. But I really do love a little hint of citrus in my cheesecakes.
03:05 And then once we've grated that in, we'll go ahead and add a little touch of white
03:10 sugar. And then we'll take our electric hand mixer and we'll beat this for
03:14 about a minute, or until it's nice and light and fluffy. And we will start off
03:17 slow, but as soon as it comes together we can turn it up to high. Oh and if your
03:22 cheese is nice and soft, you can totally just do this with a whisk. But this time
03:27 I did take the easy way out. But either way, once we have that mixed up and
03:31 looking something like this, we will stop and add some vanilla extract, plus a
03:36 little touch of all-purpose flour, and then one of the two eggs we're going to
03:40 use. And what we'll do is mix that until that first egg is incorporated
03:44 perfectly, and everything's nice and smooth and fluffy again, before we add
03:48 the second egg. And then we'll continue mixing until that gets thoroughly
03:52 blended in. And it doesn't always happen, but if you add both at once, sometimes the
03:58 mixture will separate, and it takes a while for it to smooth back out. So by
04:03 adding one at a time, we can hopefully avoid that. And that's it, once our
04:07 batter is done, we can start transferring that into our mini muffin tins. And for
04:12 me, by far the easiest way to do that, is to transfer it into a plastic bag or a
04:16 piping bag, and then we can use that to squeeze it in, which is way, way less
04:21 messy than trying to use a spoon. Not to mention like 10 times as fast. But no
04:26 matter what you use, we want to fill these all the way up. And you're gonna
04:30 see why when they come out of the oven. And by the way, if you don't have the
04:34 mini muffin tins, this will totally work in regular muffin tins. Right, the only
04:38 thing that will change will be the cooking time. And we'll add some notes in
04:41 the written recipe regarding that. But if you can, try to make them this size, since
04:46 I do think these are more fun to eat. And then once we've gone around those pans
04:50 once, we can go back around adding a little more to each one, hopefully using
04:55 up almost all the batter. Okay, I'm gonna officially say this makes at least 24.
05:00 But depending on how thick your crumb layer at the bottom, and exactly how far
05:04 you filled these up, you might have enough batter to cook an extra two or
05:07 three. Or maybe just pipe the extra into a ramekin, and make yourself a little
05:12 chef's snack. But anyway, once our batter has been transferred in, we will want to
05:17 take a skewer, or a toothpick, or something like that, and give these each
05:21 a little bit of a stir. Which is gonna help settle that batter down, and break
05:25 up any air pockets. And of course, if you're not concerned about air pockets,
05:29 and many people are not, you could probably skip this step. But I don't want
05:34 air pockets. I don't even want any air bubbles. Which is why after skewering
05:39 these, I'm gonna hedge my bets by giving them the old tapa tapa. At which point
05:45 they're ready to transfer into the center of a 325 degree oven, for about
05:49 20 to 25 minutes, or until they're slightly puffed up, and look like this.
05:55 Okay, you see how those rose just above the surface? And we have a few little
05:59 cracks forming here and there. That is exactly what we're looking for. Which for
06:04 a regular large cheesecake, might be considered slightly overcooked. But for
06:08 these little mini cheesecakes, I do like to cook them a little bit more, just to
06:13 make them ever so slightly firmer. And that's it. All we have to do at this
06:17 point is nothing. Just let these cool all the way down to room temp. And while
06:21 those sit, you'll notice they'll experience the old shrink and sink. Which
06:26 is why we really do want to fill these all the way up with the batter. So be
06:30 very aggressive when piping that in. But anyway, we'll let those cool down and
06:34 firm up. At which point they will be surprisingly easy to remove from the
06:38 pans. Okay, just go around with the tip of a thin knife, just in case it's stuck,
06:43 which it shouldn't be. And you'll see those should lift out nice and clean. And
06:47 then I'm gonna take this one and show you how to decorate it. Even though what
06:50 we really want to do is chill these thoroughly in the fridge, before we
06:53 garnish and serve them. And I'll talk a little more about that in a minute. But
06:57 what I like to do is pipe some whipped cream on top, by first covering the
07:01 surface. And then by going around, making stars all the way around the edge. And in
07:06 the spirit of full disclosure, I just didn't use straight whipped cream. I
07:10 actually whipped in a little bit of sour cream as well, just for that little bit
07:14 of extra tanginess. But anyway, the exact topping will be up to you. I mean you
07:19 are after all the Draymond Green, of whether to use whipped cream. And we
07:23 could just top it with fruit and serve it. But personally I do love the taste.
07:27 Plus I'm calling these red, white and blue. So it's gonna help with my very
07:31 patriotic design. Speaking of which, once we pipe down some whipped cream, we can
07:36 finish these up with a slice of strawberry. Or if you want, I guess a
07:39 raspberry. Plus a few strategically placed blueberries. And that's it! My red,
07:45 white and blue cheesecake bite was ready to enjoy. Although as I mentioned, I
07:50 really shouldn't, since it's not fully chilled. But I was hungry, so I went ahead
07:54 and bit in. And while that really was amazingly delicious, a still slightly
07:59 almost sort of warm cheesecake is not really the ideal situation. Alright, a
08:04 cheesecake is not supposed to melt on your palate. It's supposed to coat your
08:08 palate with all that goodness. Which is why we really do want these cold when we
08:12 serve them. But having said that, I could tell these were gonna be perfect. And I
08:17 was very happy with my cheesecake to crust ratio. And again, while it's
08:21 optional, that little bit of whipped cream with the fresh fruit on top is a
08:24 great combo. So I really did enjoy that. And it held me over while the other one's
08:30 fully chilled. And then I went ahead and garnished those the same way and plated
08:34 up. For what I think makes for a very gorgeous presentation. Alright, even if
08:38 you're not doing these for the 4th of July, I think these are very eye-catching.
08:42 And it's a proven scientific fact that people love eating miniaturized food. And
08:48 now that these were actually cold, I could finally appreciate them in all
08:52 their glory. And instead of that cheesecake just sort of melting
08:55 instantly on my tongue, it was coating my palate and slowly melting. Which is not
09:00 just an entirely different experience texture-wise, but we are just able to
09:05 taste everything much better. Okay, it's not an accident that no
09:09 restaurant is famous for their warm cheesecake, since it is just not remotely
09:13 as good as a cold cheesecake. Oh, and remember that thing I said in the intro
09:17 about not being able to eat a whole slice of cheesecake? I'm pretty sure by
09:21 the end of this video, I will have eaten more than that. Since these are as
09:25 addictive as they are delicious. So please, be careful. But no matter how
09:31 many you eat, or what you top them with, these are fast and very easy to make. And
09:36 I really do hope you give them a try soon. So please follow the links below
09:41 for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe and much more info as
09:45 usual. And as always, enjoy!
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