oreos and cheesecake and 21st birthdays, oh my!

So the other day was my sister’s boyfriend’s 21st. I’d already bought him an early birthday present in August (a 10 bucka copy of hotrod) but decided it wasn’t quite enough so I thought i’d give him the gift of cheesecake, martha stewart style. I got martha stewart’s ‘cupcake’ book a little while ago and have been using every excuse possible to bake the hell out of that book, its awesome, i want to bake pretty much everything. I’ve only baked like three and my oh my, it was a sin martha was ever jailed, how dare they take her baking abilities away from the world?? psht, whats a little insider trading when there are oreo cheesecake cupcakes to be baked!

One thing I have to say about martha’s recipes is that they always make ALOT. Doing the shop for these cakes was a little embarrassing, a kilo of cream cheese, two boxes of oreos, wow. I tried to work on my “dont worry, it isnt all for me, its a present!” face in the mirror before I went to the shops but it was too specific so i just settled for my “someone else gave me their shopping to do, what a crazy list huh?” look. No one actually cared though so it was okay. Just like when i was doing my shop for my baking stall at the markets, oh, i thought there would be gasps as i put all that flour in my trolley, at least an interested look, turns out everyone is just interested in their own shopping, sigh, what a world we live in. Okay back to it, here are some visual aids to help you to realise just how much you want to get your oreo cheesecake bake on.

The oreos, partway through me smooshing them to pieces. Well actually i just chopped them with a knife but i still kind of smooshed.

It’s no seafoam green kitchenaid (swoooon) but it mixes a kilo of cream cheese like that! (thats around where i clicked my fingers, didn’t you hear?)

In go the cookies… I didnt crush them up too much, if you do you just get the idea there are oreos in there, i wanted it to be all about the oreo goodness.

Okay so this next photo is good for several reasons. all the paper cases look pretty together you can see the oreo surprise at the bottom (shh, dont ruin the surprise for anyone else) you can see how high you’re meant to fill them, though i reckon you could even go a little more, i just got nervous) After they were all baked i got too excited by how cool they looked from underneath that i forgot to take a photo of them from above… lame. But heres the good part, when you cook them theyre just setting so they dont rise at all really, so they end up looking pretty much like they do before they go in to oven, so woo, it doesnt matter that i forgot, hopefully…

I only have two cupcake tins and so very lilttle patience, so I just got a brownie tin, put some oreos on the bottom and spread the leftover mix on top. I left the oven at the same temp and cooked it about half an hour i think? i should have paid attention. But yeah, just keep an eye on it, give it a poke, if its firm it should be good to go. I have to say that i kind of preferred this to the actual cupcakes. I havent had cheesecake in a while and the cupcakes themselves were very cheesecakey, which can be awesome but this was good because it had a thinner layer of cheesecake. Each to their own.

Now the recipe says to cool the cupcakes in their tins, then store them in their tins till serving. I think this is silly, i left mine in the tins for like ten minutes then checked them and the tins looked like this. Soggyyyyy. So i took them all out and cooled them on wracks then put them in containers and left them in the fridge. I was scared they would collapse or something but they were fine. Silly martha, so overprotective of her cheesecakes.

Okay now try and say that this is not supercool. I want to hear someone say it, i really just dont think anyone could. I dont even think it matters that we dont have a photo of the top of the cake, this MORE than makes up for it, right? yes, right!

So in conclusion, I’ve been told the cupcakes were a hit, they got a little slimy on top but my people didnt complain, i just worried. I would definitely make them again, theyre just a little different to the usual cupcake and yeah, awesome. Please enjoy them, care of martha!

Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes Martha Stewart, Cupcakes Makes 30

Ingredients

• 42 oreos (or the like) 30 left whole and 12 coarsely chopped
• 910g cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar (i used castor sugar but im sure normal sugar is fine)
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs at room temp lightly beaten (ive never really gotten the whole room temp thing when it comes to eggs. i never actually do it and it works okay…)
• 1 cup sour cream (ive never made a cheesecake before, the sour cream freaked me out a little but it was good!)
• pinch of salt

What to do with it all

1. Preheat oven to 135C (seems super cold, i was worried i had converted it wrong, but hey, all was good!) Line standard muffin tins with paper liners, place one whole cookie in the bottom of each.
2. With an electric mixer 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 until filling is set, about 22 minutes. Transfer tins to wracks to cool completely. refrigerate in tins at least 4 hours, remove from tins just before serving. (Or be a rebel and do like i did! I know, im wild.)