Mini Apple Cheesecakes
Mini apple cheesecakes are the perfect fall dessert with a crisp sweet cookie crust, juicy apple pie filling, and cinnamon streusel topping.
Ingredients
- 1½ cups graham cracker crumbs
- ½ cup unsalted butter melted
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 16 ounces cream cheese room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- ⅓ cup sour cream
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 21 ounces apple pie filling (I used Duncan Hines/Comstock brand)
Streusel Topping
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup light brown sugar
- ¼ cup finely chopped walnuts
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup unsalted butter melted
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 standard-sized muffin pans with 18 parchment cupcake/muffin papers. These peel off better than the paper variety for this dessert.
- In a medium bowl, stir together the graham cracker crumbs, melted unsalted butter, and salt until well combined, and the crumbs stick together.
- Press 1½ tablespoons of the graham cracker crumb mixture evenly into the bottoms of each of the muffin cups. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, using a handheld mixer on medium speed, beat the cream cheese and granulated sugar for 1 to 2 minutes or until smooth. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure that all the ingredients get evenly incorporated.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, to the cream cheese mixture and beat just until each egg is incorporated. You do not want to overmix and add too much air into your cheesecake filling.
- Stir in the sour cream, all-purpose flour, and vanilla extract just until smooth, and all ingredients are fully incorporated.
- Spoon 2 tablespoons of the cheesecake filling into each of the graham cracker crumb-filled muffin cups.
- Spoon your apple pie filling onto a large cutting board and roughly chop the larger pieces of apples (you do not need to do this if your brand has small chunks instead of full-sized slices) then transfer the chopped apple pie filling into a bowl to make it easier to get scoops of filling to fill the muffin cups.
- Spoon 1 to 1½ tablespoons of the chopped apple pie filling into the center of each of the cheesecake-filled muffin cups. Set aside.
- To make your streusel topping add to a medium mixing bowl the all-purpose flour, granulated sugar, light brown sugar, finely chopped walnuts, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Stir to combine.
- Drizzle the melted butter into the dry ingredients and gently stir around until most of the butter has been absorbed, and large crumbs start to form.
- Add the heavy cream and stir to ensure that all the dry ingredients are absorbed, and you have a crumble mixture with small and large crumbs.
- Top each of the mini apple cheesecakes with 1½ to 2 tablespoons of the streusel topping.
- Bake for 20 to 23 minutes or just until the streusel topping is very lightly golden and the cheesecake is set.
- Allow the mini apple cheesecakes to cool on the counter, in the pan, for 30 minutes, then transfer the pan to the refrigerator to cool completely for an additional 2½ to 3 hours or until the cheesecake layer has fully set up and chilled.
Notes
Parchment or foil-lined wrappers are the easiest to peel from the cheesecake filling.
Make sure you are using room-temperature cream cheese so that you don’t end up with lumps in your cheesecake batter.
The ingredients will fill the muffin tins to the top. You can press down the streusel just slightly to keep it contained on top of each cheesecake.
For best results, the individual cheesecakes do need to chill thoroughly so that they can firm up enough to handle. Keep them in the muffin tin to chill; it is much easier to remove them from the pan.