Red Velvet Cheesecake in Jars (Small Batch)

One day, I was walking home from school in St. Louis and stopped at a small local grocer on the way home. I generally only shopped at Straubs when I needed a quick item or two for a recipe. It was right around the corner from my apartment, but more pricey than the chain. One day, they had little plastic cups with bright green labels on an end cap. It was labeled "Peppermint Puppy Chow." I was hungry and I'd been craving peppermint everything for the past week since I'd gotten a Chocolove Peppermint in Dark Chocolate bar on sale for $1.50. (I could have eaten a bar a day, but thankfully I'd only bought one. Note: it really does taste best at 70 degrees like the label says.) Anyway, I saved the label from the Mint Puppy Chow as a reference to try making my own. The tricky ingredient was peppermint oil, which I happened to get for Christmas.

When I told my boyfriend of my plan to make Mint Puppy Chow, and told him about all of the other crazy Puppy Chow flavors I found on the internet, he wanted to make one too. He chose Red Velvet Puppy Chow. I won't even bother posting the link, because it was disgusting. Like, he-took-it-to-work-and-no-one-ate-it disgusting. That left us with half a package of Red Velvet Cake mix and a 6 oz. of left-over cream cheese. Making it into half of a cake wouldn't be easy. Instead I decided to complicate it even further by making it into a fraction of a cheesecake in little canning jars. I knew there was a recipe for Red Velvet Cheesecake by Julie Ruble at Willow Bird Baking. Her Clementine Mousse Cheesecake is about as good as cheesecake can get, so I knew her recipe wouldn't fail me. The only thing with the potential to ruin my little mini-cheesecakes was math, more specifically: fractions. Before graduate school, when I was studying for the GRE, I realized that no one ever taught me fractions. I learned a lot from the GRE Math prep-book, but I still don't like fractions. Especially when it requires three units (cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons). As a scientist, I take for granted that most of the math I have to do is metric. But I'll be honest, as a microbiologist, I'm generally only changing orders of magnitude, so I'm just moving around decimal points.

Objective
Make mini Red Velvet Cheesecakes in canning jars to use up the red velvet cake mix. Instead of following Julie Ruble's method (bake the cake and cheesecake separately, then stack them), bake the cake on top of the cheesecake, in the jars.

Materials
Crust:
8 Oreos
1 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. unsalted butter, melted
pinch salt

Cheesecake:
6 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp. flour
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 egg

Red Velvet Cake batter:
Half package, prepared per the box

Methods
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease 4 8-oz ramekins or canning jars. Set in a baking dish. On the stove, start heating a pan of water (you'll want it boiling for a water bath just before putting the cheesecakes in the oven).

2. Make the crust: Crush the Oreos. Stir in the melted butter and salt. Divide evenly among the jars and press into the bottom. Do not bake.

3. Make the filling: Beat the cream cheese and sugar on until light and fluffy. Beat in the flour. Add the vanilla and egg, beating until the mixture is homogenous. Pour the filling on top of the crust, dividing the filling evenly between the ramekins.

4. Make the water bath: carefully and gently pour boiling water into the baking dish, until the water reaches one quarter to half-way up the ramekins. Do not splash water on the cheesecakes.

5. Place the baking dish in the oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Take the cheesecakes out of the oven. Divide the pre-mixed batter evenly over the cheesecakes, return to the oven and bake 20 minutes longer, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake layer comes out clean.

6. Using tongs, remove the ramekins from the water bath. Let them cool completely on a wire rack. Refrigerate overnight and serve cold.

Results
Baking the cake layer on top of the cheesecake layer seemed to work well. The cheesecake layer was good, but a little over-baked. The jars made a fun presentation.

Discussion and Future Direction
As you've probably already figured out, this post is mostly an "is it possible?" post. Maybe there is someone out there with half of a red velvet cake, but probably not. What I learned was that the cake layer can be baked on top of the cheesecake layer. Yes the cheesecake layer might be a little over-baked, but it's cream cheese and sugar. Who really cares if it's slightly over-baked? If you care, then you probably aren't going to try this recipe. Or, you'll add the cake layer earlier. Your choice.

I will use the cheesecake filling recipe to make more mini-cheesecakes of different flavors. Red velvet isn't my favorite flavor, but I can think of a lot of other ideas for toppings. Because these are single serving portions in the serving dish, the crust can easily be left off. I'm imagining a crust-less fruit-on-the-bottom cheesecake.


Supplementary Materials