Recipe of the Week: Cheesecakes in Jars

From the author: I like the idea of serv­ing lit­tle indi­vid­ual desserts at get togeth­ers and these lit­tle cheese­cakes do the job. Peo­ple can just pick one up and go — no slic­ing and serv­ing required. These lit­tle cheese­cakes are in the smaller 4-ounce jelly jars. You can find them eas­ily at your gro­cery store. They are just about the per­fect serv­ing size for all those peo­ple who say, “Oh, I shouldn’t eat dessert. Well, maybe just a few bites.” The top­pings that you can use are endless.

Ingre­di­ents

• 2 cups gra­ham cracker crumbs (16 whole gra­ham crack­ers, ground)
• 2 table­spoons sugar
• 8 table­spoons but­ter, melted
• 4 8-ounce pack­ages of cream cheese, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 tea­spoon vanilla extract (I used 1/4 tea­spoon vanilla paste)
• zest of 1 lemon

Rasp­berry topping:

• 2 pints of fresh raspberries
• straw­berry or rasp­berry jelly

Other top­pings: I used mini choco­late chips. You can really do any­thing you like for the top­pings. All kinds of fruit would work, caramel sauce, meringue, etc.

Instruc­tions

1. Pre­heat your oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Spray the jelly jars with non-stick cook­ing spray, mak­ing sure to spray the bot­toms so the crust doesn’t stick. Blend the gra­ham cracker crumbs, sugar and melted but­ter in a bowl. Place about 1 heap­ing table­spoon of the crumbs into each jelly jar and tamp down to make the crust (I used a wine cork).
3. In a large mixer bowl, mix the room tem­per­a­ture cream cheese with the sugar until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix well. Add the sour cream, vanilla and lemon zest and mix until well incor­po­rated. Fill each jelly jar with about 1/3 cup of the fill­ing, leav­ing room at the top for your topping.
4. Place the jars in a large roast­ing pan or two deep bak­ing dishes. Fill the pan with hot water halfway up the jelly jars. Place in the oven and bake for 30 min­utes. Remove jars with tongs and place on a wire rack to cool.
5. For the rasp­berry top­ping: pick over the rasp­ber­ries and dis­card any that are moldy or bruised. Place 7 rasp­ber­ries on top of each cheese­cake. Heat about 1/3 cup of the jelly in a microwave and stir so that the jelly is spread­able. Brush the tops of the rasp­ber­ries gen­tly with the jelly to glaze them.
6. Refrig­er­ate cheese­cakes until ready to serve. Can be made the day before.