Mini Cheesecakes with Cranberries

Okay, so I could never get this recipe to look pretty. And I made it a few times. But it tastes really good and the little cheesecakes are so cute and little. And I have issues with washing cake pans so I'm kind of on a kick of making cupcake sized everything. Adapted from Craving Chronicles

For the filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1/2 cup cranberries (optional)

1 teaspoon vanilla

¼ cup sugar

For the crust:
7-9 graham crackers (or 10 digestive biscuits if you, like me, can't find graham crackers)
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350° F. Line 12 cups of a cupcake tin with paper liners.

For the crust break the crackers into chunks and pulse them in a blender until they are fine crumbs. (It should make about 1 cup of graham cracker crumbs.)

With the crumbs in the food processor, pulse while slowly pouring in the melted butter until combined. Spoon the crumbs between 12 cups of the cupcake tin, pressing the crumbs into the bottom and a little bit up the sides to form the crust. Cook for the crust for about five minutes. (The first time I made the recipe I didn't and the crust ended up rather soggy.)

For the filling, add the cream cheese and egg in the blender until smooth. Add vanilla and sugar, and cream again. Wash the cranberries and add to the blender, pulsing and until the filling is a lovely shade of light pink. Remove the tin with the pre-cooked crust from the oven. Pour the filling into each muffin cup, filling almost to the top.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the tops are no longer glossy and the centers are set. (On the first go, I baked for 40 minutes and the tops got too brown. On the second go, I turned the over off at 35 minutes but left the cheesecakes in the oven for another hour just to make sure they were set. Probably not necessary.)

Allow the cheesecakes to cool about 30 minutes at room temperature. Remove the cheesecakes from the pan to cool.Then put them in the refrigerator to cool for at least 1 hour. Once cool, store cheesecakes in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

I made a glaze of 1 cup cranberries, 1/2 cup water, 1 Tablespoon corn starch and 1/2 cup sugar. I cooked the items in a pot until the cranberries started to pop and the glaze went from white to clear. Only one of us liked the glaze (me).

I made one batch the filling without cranberries and it worked fine. But the cranberries give the cheesecake an extra zing and it smells so nice when cooking!