A bright and happy miniature cheesecake just in time for summer!

Sometimes you want cheesecake but you don’t want to wait 24 hours to eat it. If you’ve ever baked a cheesecake at home, you know what I’m talking about. I love baking mini cheesecakes because they only need a couple hours to chill and they don’t even heat up your house like cookies do – something I pay attention to as a Texan! It gets hot here in the summer and I bake these babies all season long.

I made these mini lemon cheesecakes for my SUCKER Tea Party inspired by the Jonas Brother music video. At their garden tea party, they have a variety of sweets and cupcakes so I went a little rogue with the cheesecakes, which I decorated to look like cupcakes with freshly whipped cream and lemon slices.

I used my homemade lemon extract in this recipe. I’m going to do a post soon to tell you guys how to make it! It’s super simple, but of course you can use store bought lemon extract in this. Note: I doubled the amount of lemon for my homemade extract, which is more subtle (and more delicious!) than store bought extract. I wrote it here assuming you are using the lemon extract in your pantry. Please adjust if you make homemade lemon extract!

Mini Lemon CheesecakesMakes 24
24 Vanilla Wafers
16 oz cream cheese, softened (full fat! don’t skimp!)
3 eggs, separated
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 tsp lemon extract
1/2 tsp salt
Lemon whipped cream, recipe follows
Lemon slices for garnish

1. Put cupcakes liners in two muffin tins. Preheat oven to 275 degrees Place a vanilla wafer in each cupcake liner.
2. In a large bowl, beat softened cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add eggs yolks, sweetened condensed milk, and lemon extract. Beat until smooth. Stir in freshly squeezed lemon juice.
3. In a medium sized glass bowl, beat egg whites with salt until soft peaks form. Carefully fold egg whites into cheesecake mixture.
4. Fill muffin tins 2/3 full with cheesecake mixture. Bake at 275 for 20 minutes. Cool in tins; remove from tins and chill until ready to serve. Top with lemon whipped cream, recipe follows.

Lemon whipped cream
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp lemon extract 

1. Beat all ingredients until soft peaks form. Pipe on to mini cheesecakes.

Read more about my SUCKER Tea Party here. Watch the episode:

Happy baking,

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