Smaller is better

By Kady Guyton
November 24, 2008

Mini pumpkin cheesecakes with whipped cream. Click for larger image.

There is a trick that professional cooks often fall back on for special occasions: Change the size.

Rather than make a dozen regular cupcakes, make 50 tiny ones or one giant cupcake. It's the same amount of work and ingredients, but the presentation is much more impressive. This trick can be applied to almost anything. Either make the worlds largest burrito or pass around 200 bite-size burritos. One huge pot of soup or a whole bunch of shot glasses filled with the same soup.

This week I found myself with several invitations to social events that all required me to bring food of some sort, usually dessert. No problem, it's that time of year and I like sharing with others. There is also the great food holiday, otherwise known as Thanksgiving, to contend with tomorrow. So - to make life easy - I decided to make a bunch of one kind of dessert in one cooking marathon.

Before embarking on my great journey into the land of sweets, there were a few things to consider. The main one being how well will whatever I make hold up over time. "Time" in this case being about four days. I also wanted to keep the flavors seasonal.

Pumpkin mini cheesecakes were the final winner. Not as heavy as pumpkin pie, yet still full of pumpkin spiced goodness. They can also be frozen after baking and thawed as needed.

Pretty much any cheesecake recipe can be made small. The key is to reduce the bake time and pay attention to the crust. I made mini cheesecakes in a cupcake pan with a graham cracker crust and they turned out fine. I also made a batch in a mini muffin pan and skipped the crust entirely. Those baked up in about 10 minutes and produced a lovely bite-sized cheesecake that were eaten almost as soon as they cooled. A variation on that theme would be to drop a vanilla wafer into the bottom of the cup, top with cheesecake mixture and bake until set.

Because mini cheesecakes aren't as dense as their full-size counterparts, they bake up in about half the time. So plan accordingly.

After baking, leave them in the pans until cool. Pop them out with a rubber spatula or spoon and either serve or freeze. Garnish with whipped cream and a little cinnamon.

Shrunken Cheesecake
2 packages cream cheese
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 15-ounce can pumpkin
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves Crust
2 sleeves of graham crackers, crushed finely
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar

Make crust by stirring all ingredients together. Press into bottom of cupcake pans and chill for one hour.

Filling
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bring all ingredients to room temperature. Using a mixer, combine all ingredients until smooth. Do not over mix. Fill each cupcake with 1/4 to 1/3 cup of filling. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and chill until set. Serve with whipped cream

Alternative
Make filling, spoon 1 to 2 tablespoons into mini muffin pan and bake for 10 minutes, skipping crust entirely.