Mini Rainbow Cheesecakes

Mini Rainbow Cheesecake

My fascination with making things with rainbow colors started with quilts.  I made a scrap quilt in a rainbow pattern, and to date, it's my very favorite quilt. Then my husband Stumbled Upon a rainbow cake recipe.  Ahhhh--now I could incorporate rainbows into my baking too!  I started with rainbow cupcakes, and I soon realized that cheesecake was the perfect vehicle to push my rainbow passion forward.  I started with a whole cheesecake. Beautiful.  

Then I tried mini cheesecakes in a muffin pan, but I used the paper liners, and they didn't look very elegant.  

When I saw this mini cheesecake pan online, I told my husband that's what I wanted for Mothers' Day.  Three months later, I'm finally getting around to trying it.  I'm entering the little cheesecakes in a Des Moines Art Center sponsored competition at the Iowa State Fair today.  It was the perfect excuse to try my new pan out.  I think they turned out pretty well.  

If you don't want to bother getting the cute pan, these can easily be made in muffin pans.  I would recommend using white cupcake liners so you can see the rainbow.
P.S. The mini cheesecakes you see above took second place in the "Lunch at the Art Center" competition.

Mini Rainbow Cheesecakes

Prepare one day in advance and refrigerate overnight for best results.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Crust:

•  2 T sugar
•  2 T melted butter
• ½ cup graham cracker crumbs

Mix together and put in bottom of 12 mini cheesecake pans.

Filling: 

•   2 8oz. cream cheeses @ room temperature
•   2 eggs @ room temperature
•   1 tsp. vanilla
•  ½ cup sugar
•  ¼ cup cream
•  ¼ cup sour cream
•  blue, yellow, red, and purple food coloring

Topping:

• 4 oz. sour cream
• 1 T sugar
• ¼ tsp. vanilla            

Mix together while cheesecake bakes.

Garnish:

• 1 cup fresh berries

Cream cream cheese until smooth.  Add sugar and beat until smooth.  Beat in eggs, sour cream, and vanilla.  Stir in cream until incorporated.

Set six unzipped sandwich sized zip top baggies in six small cups.  Place ¼ cup of batter in each baggie.  Pour the remaining batter into another zip top baggie—this will remain white.

Mix batter with food coloring to produce one baggie each for the following colors: blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and purple.  Start with one or two drops of color and gently squish around with your hand.  Add more food coloring if necessary.  Zip tops when done mixing colors in.

Start with the baggie of plain white batter.  Cut about 1/8 inch off one of the corners of the baggie and “pipe” in enough to just cover the crust of each individual cup in the pan.  Next, cut 1/8 inch off the green, and pipe a swirl of green in each cup.  Use up all of the color, but know that the layering will show patches of white.  Pipe with white.  Then pipe with blue, and so on until you’ve used all the colors.  Hopefully you’ll have enough white left for a final layer of white for each cup.

Place mini cheesecake pan in plastic roasting bag, leaving the top wide open.  Place in a large roasting pan and pour in very hot water to reach half way up the pan sides, being careful not to splash water onto cheesecakes.

Bake at 350° for about 35 minutes or until center is set.  Remove from oven and pour sour cream topping mixture on top and smooth out.  Return cheesecake to oven for another 5-10 minutes.

As soon as you take pan out of the oven, run a knife around the edge of each mini cheesecake to release the cheesecake from the sides.

Let cool.  Refrigerate overnight.
Remove from pan and garnish with fresh berries.

AmeriColor makes GREAT gel food color.

My first rainbow cheesecake attempt. I like it.

My favorite quilt