Mini Oreo Cheesecakes

My husband was out of town last weekend. So I invited a bunch of friends over for a girls’ night at my house. It was great – no men, no kids. Just a bunch of moms in desperate need of a night out.

There are really only two rules for entertaining a group of women, especially a group of moms who’ve just come from wrangling their kids into bed.

The first is wine. And plenty of it.

The second is bite-sized food. This is a good idea for lots of reasons. You can keep holding that wine glass in one hand while you pop a bite of food in your mouth with the other. If everything’s just a bite or two, you can taste a lot of different things. It keeps the vibe more casual than a sit-down meal. And so on and so forth.

But what it really comes down to is this: Women like to eat. But we don’t like to be obvious about it.

Serving mini foods solves that problem. Yes, we (I?) might very well eat 4 2-bite brownies. But you won’t see me standing there with a giant piece of brownie in my hand. So for all you know, that bite of brownie in my mouth is the first one I’ve eaten all night.

Same goes for these mini Oreo cheesecakes. They’re the full cheesecake experience – Oreo cookie crust, creamy, Oreo-flecked filling, crunchy crushed-Oreo topping -- but packaged into a tiny treat the size of a cupcake. You can eat the entire thing and not feel guilty.

And if you have another, I’ll pretend not to notice.

Start with a package of Oreo cookies. Leave 15 cookies whole. Chop 6 cookies into smaller pieces.

Put cupcake liners in a muffin pan and then put an Oreo cookie in each liner (the cookie becomes the crust for these cheesecakes).

Beat the cream cheese. Then add the sugar, vanilla and eggs.

Beat in the sour cream and salt.

Then stir in the chopped cookies.

Fill the liners with the batter. You can fill them up to the top; this batter doesn’t expand much.

Bake until the batter is just set. Cool completely. Then refrigerate at least 4 hours before serving.

To serve, top the cheesecakes with some whipped cream and/or crushed Oreo cookies.

Mini Oreo Cheesecakes

From Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes

21 Oreo cookies (15 whole, 6 chopped)

2 8-ounce packages cream cheese

½ cup sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs, room temperature

½ cup sour cream

Pinch of salt

1.      Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line muffin tins with paper cupcake liners, and then place one whole cookie in the bottom of each lined cup.

2.      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 sides of bowl as needed. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.

4.      Divide batter evenly among cookie-filled cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until filling is set, about 22 minutes.

5.      Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate (in tins) at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove from tins just before serving.

Makes 15 mini cheesecakes