Oreo Cheesecake mini's

Oreos + Cheesecake + mini= Yes Ma'am!!! Since my first time paging through the Martha Cupcake book I have been so excited about these mini oreo cheesecakes. Cheesecake is definitely one of my favorite genre's of dessert and I am a firm believer that most things in a miniature form are just better, it's science. Although Ponies are mean, so they are not better, I guess they are their own breed though, not technically a miniature horse.....I digress.

These were definitely tasty little cheesecakes and extremely easy! The cutest part is that you just use a whole Oreo cookie at the bottom of each cupcake liner as the crust. I figure I can re-create just about any type of cheesecake in this form and perhaps just switch up the cookie crust with Nilla wafers or any other sort of delicious cookie......that's the beauty of cookies, they're round and fit perfectly into a cupcake liner, what a happy marriage of deliciousness! I keep forgetting to take photos of my work, so you will have to use your imagination. My creations are just so yummy they are getting gobbled up before the photoshoot can happen.

Ingredients:

42 Oreos, 30 left whole, and 12 coarsely chopped (I of course used reduced fat, so it's practically health food)

2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten

1 cup sour cream

Pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup.

2. With an electric mixer on medium high speed, beat cream cheese until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Gradually add sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in vanilla.

3. Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time, beating to combine and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.

4. Divide batter evenly among cookie-lined cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until filling is set, about 22 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove from tins just before serving.

Oreo Cream Cheese Brownies

This was quite an experiment for me, since I have never made regular brownies from scratch, let alone fancy'in it up with cream cheese and oreos, but I think I did a pretty swell job. I found this recipe on visions of sugar plum and the combination of dark cocoa and cream cheese made it a must try for me. Brownies from scratch is like anything else I have tried to make from scratch; just a couple extra ingredients and a couple extra steps, but a whole lot better than store bought. So that equals totally worth it for me! Hopefully my co-workers enjoy them, and the 2 that have wedding dresses to fit into this winter won't be too upset with me for bringing in yet another treat. I did substitute some of the full fat items for reduced fat and they still taste extremely rich and delicious, but I would still rather not know the nutrition facts of these!

Natalie about to enjoy brownie # ?, she does not have a wedding dress to fit into.

Ingredients:

-1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

-3/4 cup granulated sugar

-8 ounces (1 package) cream cheese, softened (i used 1/3 less fat version and it seemed to work well)

-3/4 cup confectioners' sugar

-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

-1 cup all purpose flour

-1/2 cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder
-1/2 teaspoon salt

-2 large eggs
-1 1/3 cups coarsely chopped Oreo cookies (i used the reduced fat oreos and I can't tell a difference)

Directions:

1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8x8-inch square baking dish with foil; coat foil with cooking spray.

2.Melt the butter in a small saucepan, over medium heat. Whisk in sugar and bring to a boil, whisking frequently; boil 1 minute. Set aside to cool for 5 minutes.

3.In a small mixing bowl, using a mixer on medium speed, beat together cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and vanilla extract, until well combined, about 1 minute.

4.In a medium sized mixing bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder and salt; whisk until combined.

5.In a large mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, until combined. Whisk in melted butter-sugar mixture until well combined.

6.Stir in flour mixture until just combined, followed by Oreo cookies.

7.Spread half of brownie batter into baking dish, followed by cream cheese layer; dot the top with remaining brownie batter, and spread evenly, as best as you can. Run a knife through batter to make "swirls".

8.Bake at 350 degrees F, for 25 minutes.Cool on a wire rack to room temperature before slicing. Lift foil out of baking dish, and slice. For easier slicing, try freezing the brownies for 30-60 minutes.