Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

This recipe is from my sister's blog, so I will provide the link to the original recipe as well.  The only thing I changed is the graham cracker crust.  In Spain it's hard to find graham crackers, so I used what they call "digestive cookies," which are supposed to be healthy cookies for breakfast.  They taste very similar to graham crackers, and in the end may be the same thing just in a different form.  I also added a bit more butter and some low-fat milk to the crust mixture since I found it to be a bit dry with the "digestive cookies".  It is also quite difficult to find raspberries in Spain, so I had to skip that step and use blueberries instead.

Ingredients: 

20 "digestive cookies" or graham crackers

2 tablespoons room temperature butter

1/4 cup low-fat milk

2 packages of 8 oz. cream cheese

3/4 cups sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs (room temperature is best)

½ cup raspberry jam

(optional topping):

½ cup heavy whipping cream

1 tsp vanilla

2-3 tsp sugar

Preheat your oven to 350F or 176C.

Crush the cookies in a ziploc bag using a rolling pin (or meat mallet).

Mix them in a bowl with the butter and the low-fat milk.  I really eye-balled this step to see how much butter and milk to add.  Obviously, the more you add, the more moist it will be.  It really depends on how you like your cheesecake crust.

Mold the cookie mixture into cupcake papers pressing down with fingers.  Pop them in the oven for 5 minutes.

 

Now for the cheesecake part.  Empty your cream cheese packets into a mixing bowl and mix with a stand or hand mixer on medium until creamy(er).  Then add the sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla.  Mix until combined.  Add the eggs one at a time and mix until smooth. 

Now the fun part...using a tablespoon, fill your cupcake liners.  They shouldn't rise too much, so fill them until almost full, leaving space for the raspberry jam swirl.  Once full, add a dallop of raspberry jam to each cupcake and using a toothpick or chopstick (like me) swirl the jam around on the surface of the cheesecake.  Now bake for 20-25 minutes until set.

Take out of oven and let cool to room temperature before putting in the fridge for thirty minutes.  

To make the whipped cream topping, whisk together using electric mixture the following ingredients: heavy whipping cream, vanilla and sugar until thick.

Take cheesecakes out of fridge and using a icing sleeve decorate them to your liking.  

Enjoy! Thanks to my sister for the recipe! http://ifieverownedabakery.blogspot.com.es/2012/08/chocolate-raspberry-cheesecake-bite.html#comment-form