mini heart individual cheesecakes for valentine's day

For Valentine's weekend this year, I decided to make these mini cheesecakes decorated with mini raspberry puree hearts! I've made similar cheesecakes in the past (see here for raspberry and here for blueberry), but I always gave them a marbled look with the fruit puree. This time, I was inspired by all the cute heart desserts and things on Pinterest (such as these adorable heart cookies at Annies Eats, or this gorgeous cheesecake decorated with mini hearts at Cooking Classy), so I decided to use the same technique to make little individual cheesecakes instead.

First I made a simple crust with chocolate graham cracker crumbs and melted butter. I placed a couple teaspoons of the crust mixture into each cup of a cupcake pan lined with paper liners, and gently patted down the crusts before baking them at 350F for about 7 minutes. Then while they were cooling, I got started on the filling.

The cheesecake filling was made with cream cheese, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract. So simple! Once it was all mixed well, I used an ice cream scoop to plop one scoop directly on top of the cooled crusts.

Next I made the raspberry puree. I threw a couple of handfuls of fresh raspberries into a food processor, tossed in some sugar, pureed it, and then strained it. I discarded the seeds and used the smooth puree to make the hearts.

Now for the fun part - I used a small spoon to dollop a few dots of the raspberry puree on top of the filling. 

And then I used a toothpick to "connect the dots" and draw a line through the center of each dot. And that's how you get the adorable mini hearts!

Once all the hearts were "drawn", I baked the cheesecakes in a water bath at 325F for about 25 minutes. When they were done, I let them come to room temperature, and then put them in the fridge to set overnight.

I like these best cold and straight out of the fridge, but you can also serve them at room temperature once they are set.

Happy belated Valentine's Day! Hope you had a great one!

*** Update: You can now find the recipe for mini cheesecakes in my new book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!