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Mini vanilla cheesecakes with a crunchy Lotus® cookies crust and caramelized hazelnuts, salted caramel and caramelized apples, de-li-cious…

I really enjoyed these mini cheesecakes, there’s a crisp crust made of crushed Lotus® cookies mixed with a bit of caramelized nuts, a creamy vanilla cheesecake, slightly crunchy apples bathing in salted caramel, and a crown of caramelized hazelnuts, it’s a delicious mix of textures and flavors.

To make this delicious dessert, you will need some salted caramel and caramelized hazelnuts, you can make these recipes a day ahead, here are links to my recipes salted caramel sauce and caramelized hazelnuts, for the caramelized hazelnut recipe, you can halve the quantities and here I only used hazelnuts as their flavor is much milder.

  • 12 pastries
  • Easy
  • 1 h 30

Recipe :

Ingredients:

Caramelized Apples:

2 Pink Lady or Granny Smith apples, peeled and diced

1 1/2 tbsp. butter

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp cinnamon powder

Juice of 1 lemon

1 tbsp. cornstarch

Crust:

1 cups (115 g.) finely crushed Lotus® cookies (about 14 cookies)

3 1/2 tbsp. (50 g.) unsalted butter, melted

2 tbsp. caramelized hazelnuts

Filling:

2 x 8 oz (454 g.) cream cheese, softened

2/3 cup (130 g.) granulated sugar

Pinch of salt

2 eggs

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup (120 ml) heavy cream

Garnish:

Salted caramel

Caramelized Hazelnut

Utensils:

1 12 muffin pan

Make the caramelized apples:

In a large pan, melt the butter, add the apples, sugar, cinnamon, lemon juice and cornstarch, stir and simmer for about 10 minutes or until the apples are softened but still have a bit of crunch

Set aside to cool

Make the crust:

Preheat oven to 300°F (150°C) and line muffin pan with muffin cups

Into a bowl, mix together the crushed Oreo cookies with 2 tbsp. caramelized hazelnuts, add the melted butter and mix together

Add a tbsp. of mixture into each muffin cup and press down

Into the oven for about 6 minutes

Remove muffin pan from oven and set aside to cool

Once the crusts are cooled, pile about a tsp of caramelized apples onto the center of crusts

Prepare the filling:

Into a medium bowl, add the cream cheese, heavy cream, pinch of salt and sugar, with a spatula, turn over and crush the cream cheese onto the sugar until well distributed

Quickly whisk the eggs with a fork and add to the cream cheese together with the vanilla, whisk just until incorporated, do not overmix, I don’t like my cream cheese mixture too runny, plus you don’t want to form too many bubbles

Pour evenly into the muffin cups

Bake and decorate the cheesecakes:

Into the oven for 20 to 22 minutes (mine took 22 minutes)

Let cool completely at room temperature

Then refrigerate at least 3 or 4 hours before serving

Before serving, add a tsp of salted caramel in the hollow center top of the cheesecakes, add a few caramelized apples,

To distribute the caramelized hazelnuts, I laid a round cookie cutter on top of cheesecakes and sprinkled pinches of hazelnuts

Note:

These cheesecakes can be stored in your fridge for a few days

I do not use any kind of mixer to make my cheesecakes because then the cream cheese becomes too runny, plus it gets too bubbly

Enjoy!