Did you know you can bake cheesecake in a muffin pan? This recipe for creamy mini cheesecakes is so simple and perfect for a small crowd. Make sure you use a standard 12-count muffin pan. For extra mini cheesecakes baked in a mini muffin pan, see recipe Notes.
Cheesecake is one of my favorite desserts and I have two recipes that steal my heart each time: classic cheesecake and no-bake cheesecake. Both recipes serve A LOT of people. If you love cheesecake, but don’t need an entire cheesecake in the house, try mini cheesecakes instead.
I have a few mini cheesecake recipes:
- Mini Margarita Cheesecakes
- Pumpkin Cheesecakes
- Chocolate Chip Cheesecakes
- Sprinkle Cheesecake Cookie Cups
These recipes yield anywhere from 16–24 muffin-sized cheesecakes. They’re all fun and flavorful, but maybe 16–24 mini cheesecakes is still too many. I felt inspired to reduce down even further and leave out all the extra goodies. Today’s recipe yields 9–10 mini cheesecakes. They’re simple, straightforward, and at only a few bites each, they’re awesome for portion control.
Video Tutorial
How to Make Cheesecake in a Muffin Pan
All we’re doing here is scaling down both the graham cracker crust and cheesecake batter from my classic cheesecake. Use a little more than 1 Tablespoon of both the crust and batter in each mini cheesecake. Like the big version, pre-bake the crust and make sure your cheesecake batter ingredients are at room temperature.
Bake the cheesecakes in a standard 12-count muffin pan. There’s no need for a springform pan and no need to mess with a water bath. Mini cheesecakes are not only easier than a full cheesecake, they take half the time to prepare! And if you’re looking for a version that sets in the refrigerator instead of the oven, you’ll appreciate these mini no-bake cheesecakes instead.
Want to add some flavor? Use my white chocolate raspberry cheesecake bars recipe and see those recipe notes for how to turn them into mini cheesecakes. Love those.
Get creative with the toppings. The baked and cooled cheesecakes will slightly sink down in the centers, but all is not lost. The way I see it, the dip gives you more room for toppings!
Cheesecake Toppings:
- Strawberry Sauce, Raspberry Sauce, or Blueberry Sauce
- Lemon Curd
- Homemade Whipped Cream
- Red Wine Chocolate Ganache
- Homemade Salted Caramel
- Chocolate Ganache
Mini Cheesecakes
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours, 15 minutes
- Yield: 9-10
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Bake deliciously creamy mini cheesecakes in a muffin pan! This easy recipe yields 9 individual cheesecakes that are perfect for portion control. Use a standard 12-count muffin pan. For extra mini cheesecakes baked in a mini muffin pan, see recipe note.
Ingredients
Graham Cracker Crust
- 2/3 cup (80g) graham cracker crumbs (about 5 1/2 full sheet graham crackers)
- 2 Tablespoons (28g) unsalted butter, melted
- 1 Tablespoon (12g) granulated sugar
Cheesecake
- 8 ounces (226g) full-fat brick cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (60g) full-fat sour cream, at room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice (optional, but recommended)
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line a standard 12-count muffin pan with 9–10 liners. (For a mini muffin pan, see recipe note.) This recipe yields only 9–10 mini cheesecakes, so there will be 2–3 empty. You could skip the liners and spray the pan with non-stick spray or grease with butter, but the mini cheesecakes are pretty stubborn to release from the pan. I recommend using liners to make things easier.
- Make the crust: Combine all of the crust ingredients in a medium bowl. Mixture will be sandy. Firmly press a heaping Tablespoon of crust mixture into each liner. (I use closer to 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons of crust per mini cheesecake.) Pre-bake for 5 minutes.
- Make the filling: Using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment, beat the cream cheese and granulated sugar together on medium-high speed in a large bowl until the mixture is smooth and creamy, about 1 minute. Add the sour cream, vanilla extract, and lemon juice then beat until fully combined. On medium speed, add the egg and beat just until combined. Batter will be thick. Divide the batter between all the liners. It’s about 1 Tablespoon per cheesecake.
- Bake until the edges are set and the centers only slightly jiggle, about 18–20 minutes.
- Set the pan on a wire rack and allow cheesecakes to cool at room temperature for 30 minutes, then transfer to the refrigerator and chill for at least 2 hours and up to 1 day. If chilling for longer than 2 hours, loosely cover the cheesecakes. The cheesecakes will slightly sink in the middle as they chill. It gives you room for toppings!
- Once chilled, add any desired toppings (see Note below) and serve. Cover and store leftover cheesecakes in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: Prepare the cheesecakes through Step 3 up to 2–3 days in advance. Cover unbaked cheesecakes and store in the refrigerator until ready to bake. Continue with Step 4. Freeze individual baked cheesecakes for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before serving.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 12- count Muffin Pan | Cupcake Liners | Food Processor | Glass Mixing Bowls | Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Cooling Rack
- Topping Suggestions: Salted caramel, lemon curd, strawberry topping, chocolate ganache, red wine chocolate ganache, fresh fruit or maraschino cherries, and homemade whipped cream.
- More Than 9 Mini Cheesecakes: This recipe is fantastic for doubling, tripling, or quadrupling. Simply double, triple, or quadruple each ingredient, including in the crust.
- Super Mini Cheesecakes: Line a 24-count mini muffin pan with mini muffin liners or grease with nonstick spray or butter. For easy and seamless removal from the pan, using liners is preferable. Make the crust and cheesecake batter as directed. Press 2 teaspoons of crust into each mini muffin liner. Pre-bake at 350°F (177°C) for 4 minutes. Remove from the oven and fill each with cheesecake batter. Bake for 10–11 minutes or until the cheesecakes appear set on top. Continue with Step 6 in this recipe. Yields approximately 30 super mini cheesecakes.
- Non-US Readers: Don’t have graham crackers where you live? Use these measurements for a biscuit crumb crust for these mini cheesecakes: 1 cup (105g) digestive biscuit crumbs (7 biscuits) + 30g butter, melted + 2 Tablespoons (25g) sugar. Grind the biscuits into crumbs, combine with sugar, then stir in the melted butter. Press into liners and pre-bake as directed in Step 2. And from what I understand, spreadable cream cheese sold in a tub in countries outside of the US is a little different from the spreadable cream cheese in the US. It’s thicker, sturdier, and more solid and should be OK to make cheesecake. I have no experience with it, but this is what I’ve heard from other non-US readers.
Do I use a water bath for the mini cheesecakes?
Hi MD, no need to use a water bath here. Enjoy!
Hi Sally! Thank you for the amazing recipe! But I have a question, can I substitute the sour cream with plain yoghurt? It’s a bit difficult to find sour cream in where I live :’(
Hi Rae Anne, you can use plain Greek yogurt instead. Hope they turn out great!
Mini cheesecakes in oven now. I have question. When do I release cheesecakes from muffin tin? After cooled in fridge? Tks
Hi Veronica, we usually remove them from the muffin pan after they’ve cooled, but you could also (very!) carefully remove them after they’ve cooled at room temperature for 30 minutes and place the on a plate or platter if you don’t have room in the refrigerator for the entire muffin pan.
Can I add chocolate chips to these or maybe some pumkin?
Hi Mackenzie, you can add 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips to this batter. For pumpkin, we recommend using the filling from this pumpkin cheesecake pie. Enjoy!
I only got 21 rather than 30 super mini cheesecakes so I must have made mine bigger but they were perfectly cooked and so shockingly delicious! I found the crust unbearably finicky and am tempted to try putting a mini cookie on the bottom instead of pressing wafer/cookie crumbs but I’m sure to get a lot of practice at whatever I do as I will be making these very frequently. Thank you for the awesome recipe.
Does this recipe freeze well?
Hi Pamela, Yes! You can freeze individual baked cheesecakes for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before serving.
I want to make these for an event this weekend but I would prefer to use the mini silicone pans that I have. Would you recommend changing the baking time?
Hi Wendy, see recipe Notes for super mini cheesecake baking times and instructions. Enjoy!
Hi Sally, would using a brick light cream cheese be okay? No particular reason, other than the fact that I only have l have the light one at home haha.
Hi Laura Ann, for best taste and texture, we highly recommend using a full-fat block of cream cheese instead.
Hi Sally, I have used your recipe many times but today the cheesecake batter is very thin and not puffing like it usually does. I have made it two different times today with the same results
Hi Deb, are you using a lower fat cream cheese, or a cream cheese spread by chance? Or any other ingredient changes by chance?
This is a fantastic recipe! I’ve made it repeatedly for church fellowship events and it is always a hit.
Normally I double to quadruple the recipe using my silicon mini muffin molds. (I have 4 silicone molds for the mini muffins—which will make 96 mini cheesecakes—since I do this so often.) Since my KitchenAid mixer is 4.5 quart, I usually double the recipe and do it twice to get nearly a hundred treats. (My KitchenAid can’t accommodate more than two times the recipe.)
I have a couple of suggestions: First:) slightly increase the amount of crust. I use my 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup to melt the butter in my microwave. (Cover the butter when melting!) To that I add the graham cracker crumbs and sugar and stir. I have used cookies in lieu of graham crackers (Biscotti, Nilla wafers, Oreos, etc.) and that works fine; just don’t add sugar. Often I combine graham crackers with whatever cookies I have on hand and that works great. You don’t have to add sugar to the crust. I have plastic, rounded measuring spoons and when I use the one teaspoon and ½ teaspoon packed measuring spoons of crumb/butter mixture to the mini molds you have a solid crust base. The one teaspoon packed measure works as well, but I prefer the extra bit of crust.
Second suggestion:) use a K-cup (Keurig type) to tamp down the graham cracker crust for the (24) mini muffin molds. The K-cup fits the silicone mini mold perfectly and makes compressing the crust a breeze (48 done in less than a minute!) I use a silicone pastry bag with a small nozzle to fill the cheesecake filling. The pastry bag makes filling the cups a very tidy breeze.
The recipe calls for room temperature ingredients (cream cheese and egg). Please don’t neglect this step! It’s very important! Also, it won’t pipe through the pastry bag if it isn’t smooth, and that necessitates the room temperature ingredients.
You can use Greek yogurt instead of the sour cream, or half yogurt half sour cream. This recipe simply works! Tweaking it a bit won’t phase it!
This recipe is not only a keeper, it is a count-on certainty!
The one concern I have is using silicone molds. I love them because you can manipulate the flexible silicone to pop-out the cheesecakes (or whatever you are baking!) They come out clean and beautiful! No need for paper cups! Nevertheless, baking times are normally calibrated using metal molds. My silicone mini-muffin mold cheesecakes normally take 16 to 17 minutes in a preheated 350-degree oven. The molds (so flexible!) must be placed on a cookie sheet, and in my oven, I can only cook one cookie sheet worth at a time for them to come out right. I would appreciate it if internet recipe wizards noted the time and or cooking adaptations for silicone bakeware. (Silicone bakeware cleans easily, comes out beautifully, and stores wonderfully. I’ve given away my metal mini-muffin, regular muffin size, and extra large muffin size metal pans because the silicone is simply better for my usages.) So please, note any adaptations that should be made for silicone pans, internet authors everywhere!
Really appreciate the Greek yogurt substitute suggestion. Really wanting some of these and I don’t have sour cream. I’ll give the yogurt a try!
Hi Sally! Quick question on the amount of cream cheese. The recipe says 226g but for the mini margarita cheesecake recipe (which is AMAZING by the way) the amount of cream cheese is double (452g).
Also, thank you for thinking of us over in the UK. Your notes are really helpful
Hi Elyssa, good eye! The two recipes are different and yield different amounts (the margarita ones are thicker, too). Feel free to try the margarita cheesecakes without the margarita flavorings.
Thank you for the fast reply, Sally! I did as you suggested and made the margarita recipe without the flavoring but added the vanilla & lemon juice and put some cinnamon in the base. They’re cooling now.
Your website is the best! We can’t wait for football season to make some pretzels and cheese dip