Recipe - Blueberry Cheesecake

Cheesecake is one of my favorite dessert, it can be plain, with fruits, or with chocolates, I'm happy eating a whole cake. I wasn't planning on baking a cheesecake but my husband saw a ready made Graham cracker pie crust at Rustan's Fresh supermarket. I was telling him to get the crushed graham cracker variety because it's much cheaper (and I know how to make the crust), but he insisted, saying that it will cost more or the same without the hassle of making one. Well, I guess he's right so we bought the ready made crust. I asked him what will I be doing with this crust, he said, "bake me a blueberry cheesecake", and off we go looking for the other ingredients (even though it's not on my grocery list). So here's my blueberry cheesecake recipe, hope you try it.

Blueberry Cheese Cake

Ingredients:

2        packages (8 oz.) Philadelphia cream cheese, softened

1        cup sugar

1        tsp.  vanilla

3        eggs

1        Sunny Select® Ready-to-eat Pie Crust® Graham Crackers 

240g   Nestle sour cream

1 tsp   lemon zest

1 can Duncan Hines Comstock Original Royal blueberry pie filling & topping

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (about 165C).
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese on low speed for 1 minute until smooth and free of any lumps. 
3. Add the eggs, one at a time, and continue to beat slowly until combined, gradually add sugar and beat until creamy, for 2 minutes.
4. Add sour cream, lemon zest, and vanilla. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and the beaters. The batter should be well-mixed but not over beaten. 
5. Pour the filling into the ready made crust (which is already placed on an aluminum pan when I bought it).
6. Place the aluminum pan on a tray and bake it for 35 minutes (do not overcook). The cheesecake should still jiggle (it will firm up after chilling). 
7. Let cool in pan for 30 minutes. 
8. Chill in the refrigerator, loosely covered, for at least 3 hours. 
9. Remove and transfer it to a cake plate. Garnish it with blueberries.

Since I only bought 1 ready-made pie crust, there was a lot of cheesecake mixture left, so I decided to make a mini cheesecake. It's a good thing I have crushed graham crackers stored in my pantry.

Directions for the mini cheesecake:

1. Mix the crushed graham crackers (about a cup) with 2 tbsps. butter and 1/4 stick of melted butter. Blend well.
2. Press the graham cracker mixture on the bottoms of 12 paper lined muffin pan trays.
3. Pour the remaining cheesecake mixture into the muffin pan and bake at 325F for 30 minutes or when you insert a knife and it comes out clean.
4. Place the muffin pan on a cooling rack for 20 minutes.
5. After cooling, remove the mini cheesecake from the pan and chill it for 2 hours.
6. Remove the paper lining and place your favorite toppings on top.

Happy eating!

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