Buenos Días mi Amigos!

As some of you may already know I was delighted to be asked to help out on the sets of the latest edition of the Compendium films produced by the new class of EBM students! This round featured a Steampunk Neverland theme and the costumes, make-up, set dec and everything else just blew my mind.  I was really impressed and I can’t wait to see what the final films look like!

As usual I was busy taking pictures of all of the food I prepared throughout the week, and you’ll get to see the many photos in the near future so stay tuned (I’m also going to ask my girl Sam Green for permission to use some of her fantastic stills from the shoot to give you guys an inside look at the process!) For the time being though, (since I’ve already been asked for this twice so far) I want to share my recipe for the mini cheesecakes I made for the awesome team Tink! They were light and creamy, and most importantly…EASY! Want to learn how to make them? Well just keep on reading!

• 12 vanilla wafers — These can be a bit difficult to find so you could always make your own crust by crushing up graham crackers and mixing them with a bit of melted butter, rolling it out, cutting out little circles and putting that in the bottom of your cups.  But Mr. Christie’s Nilla wafers are definitely an easy and delicious solution for these babies.
• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 1 (21 ounce) can cherry pie filling (I chose to go with my favorites my mom’s home-made raspberry jam and then fresh cut strawberries with sugar. MmmmMmmMmm…)
• 

(I ran out of the metal muffin tins so I had to finish with regular cupcake cup. To be honest though, the paper ones worked way better because you could actually peel it out and eat it like a cupcake, whereas they would get stuck in the metal ones and you had to eat it with some type of utensil.  At least I know for next time!)

Instructions :

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Line muffin tins with 12 paper baking cups. Place a vanilla wafer in each one.
3. In a medium mixing bowl beat cream cheese until fluffy. Add eggs, lemon juice, and sugar. Beat until smooth and thoroughly combined.
4. Fill each baking cup 2/3 full with cream cheese mixture. (I filled the tin ones to the brim and 2/3rds for the paper cups)
5. Bake in preheated oven for 15 to 17 minutes. Cool on a rack. Top with fruit pie filling. Pipe whipped cream or sweetened cream cheese into a rosette on top of each cheesecake just prior to serving, if desired.

The recipe said it made 12 per batch, so I decided to quadruple to feed the 40 people on set. Well let me tell you, the first double batch I made gave me 44 instead of 24, and the second batch gave me 40 instead of 24 again.  I’m sure it depends how you measure it out and what kind of cups you use, but suffice to say, it makes more than a dozen per recipe.

Test cheesecake — and it was amazing. The Nilla wafers are best once they’ve been left overnight and absorb some of the moisture from the cake, otherwise they’re a little hard once they’re fresh from the oven — I happen to prefer them this way.

The whipped cream I had was melting all over the place…

All and all it was an excellent adventure making all of the mini-cheesecakes, so much so that Sam and I have already planned an evening of cheesecake eating and Criminal Minds watching… can’t wait.

Well thanks for reading ya’ll! Stay tuned for the rest of the photos from my time on the Compendium Shoots!

Peace,Love&Cheesecakes.

P.♥