Mini Mars Bar Cheesecakes

Lots of cheesecakes

This was supposed to be our Kids Cooking Thursday entry, however we went house hunting on Thursday, and didn't have time, and on second review the recipe seemed a little complex for the attention span of two children under five, and for the patience of a mother whose baby is five days overdue. But Master Four did come in the kitchen every now and then to "make sure it tastes nice" at various steps along the way.

This was another one of this fortnight's Cooks Club Challenges.

MINI MARS BAR CHEESECAKES

This recipe is for 10 x 1/3 cup individual cheesecakes
or double to make an 8 “ spring -form tin.

INGREDIENTS
90 gm biscuit crumbs
50g butter - melted
2 ½ tsp cocoa

CARAMEL SAUCE
1 tblsp brown sugar 20g extra butter 2 tbs cream

CHOCOLATE SAUCE
60g milk chocolate 2 tb cream

250g cream cheese-softened
200 gm condensed milk
100 gm white choc melts (melted)
150 gm cream
2 tb boiling water
2 flat tsp gelatine

1 mars bar

METHOD

1.Combine biscuit crumb, cocoa and melted butter.
Spoon into 10x 1/3 cup silicone cake pans.
(If using muffin size you will only make 7/Cool

2.Press mixture evenly over the bases with a plastic cup. Refrigerate until firm.

3.Combine brown sugar, extra butter and
cream in a micro safe bowl. Zap in 30 second bursts on 70 % power, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Then cook for 3 x 30 seconds longer until slightly thicker. Cool.

4.Combine milk chocolate and the cream in a micro safe bowl. Zap in 30 second bursts, stirring until smooth. Don’t overheat.

5.Sprinkle gelatine over the water. Stir until gelatine dissolves.
Cool for several minutes.

6.Beat cream cheese with electric mixer until smooth. Add condensed milk, * then melted white chocolate scraping down well between each addition.
Stir gelatine mixture into cream cheese then the cream.

7.Pour half the cream cheese mixture into crumb crust and drop in a small piece of finely sliced mars bar, drizzle over a swirl of chocolate sauce. Fill with remaining mixture and give a gentle shake and tap to smooth the tops.

Drizzle (or pipe) the caramel and chocolate sauce over cream cheese mixture.
Pull skewer backwards and forwards through mixture to create a
rippled effect.

Refrigerate for several hours or overnight until set.
Garnish with extra sliced mars bar. I put these in the freezer overnight as they pop our of the silicone really easily then. They freeze well for ages (if they last that long ) and they don’t take long to defrost.

*You have to have everything ready in advance –(check the chocolate sauce is smooth and ready to use and you have sliced the mars bar ) before you add the melted chocolate to the cream cheese mixture, as it can start to set quickly once the melted chocolate is added.

I had waaay too much sauce and cheese mixture, so I had to crush up another 150g of biscuits and melt some more butter, and placed it in a deli keeper lined with foil. I didn't wait for the bottom to set because it was already after five, so we'll see how that went tomorrow.

Cheesecake "slice" (ie, leftovers)

As for the rest, I made the first half of the batch properly, with cooling between steps and everything, with one exception. Because I used speculaas biscuits, I left out the cocoa because I thought it would be flavoured enough. But I did add the cocoa in for the second batch, just to see how it would taste. I made mine in patty cases resting in muffin tins, so I got 15 of them out of the (original) biscuit mixture. The other thing I did was when I melted my white chocolate, I added part of the 150g cream that was to follow. That helped stop it from overcooking, or seizing up, and it stop the cheese mix from setting too quickly once it was added too.

No idea how well it set or tastes yet. The plan is to freeze these, so as to have something "nice" on hand when people come to visit the new baby or new house (when we finally get one) - it's nice to have something to offer with a cup of coffee, not just a store bought biscuit. Apparently the mini sized ones thaw really quickly, so that should be perfect. But of course, I'll have to taste one, just to make sure they are suitable for guests before going to the effort of freezing them. *grinz*

***EDIT 1/06***
They were nice, still very soft after 17 hours in the fridge though, and I would not use speculaas again. Really brought out a gingery taste that is usually a background flavour in the biscuits. I haven't tried the batch with cocoa in the base yet, maybe they will be better.

***Double Edit 2/06***
I froze the lot, so I could actually retrieve my muffin tins. And the batch with the cocoa in the base was a lot nicer. Half of that batch is gone now. I sliced it into tiny squares, and served some to DP's parents who came around yesterday afternoon. Then I ate quite a few myself. I didn't thaw them though, just served them cold and semi-frozen. I quite prefer my cheesecake semi-frozen anyway, it's like chewy ice cream on a crunchy base.

These will be served up with some form of chocolate drink for Stephanie's 35th Blog Party, over at Dispensing Happiness, the theme of which this month is Chocolate. Sure, I'm pushing it a bit using a blog entry from before the theme was announced, but I'm really, really pregnant, so I can. :P And besides, I plan on taking a new photo for the actual entry post, and linking back to here only for the recipe anyway. I still have to come up with a chocolate drink I can drink, and hot chocolate seems far too obvious. I'm sure half the entries will have that, and besides, I've been using hot chocolate powder in single serve sticks lately, and that really doesn't feel like "cooking" enough for me to justify it as a blog party entry.