Mini Mint Cheesecakes
When I was much younger, I went to Ireland with my grandmother. Now, she didn’t drive, so we always had one or the other of our 436 cousins take us around to visit the other 435 cousins. (And I’m not exaggerating the number. Really.)
We made our basecamp in a small town called Ennistymon and from there, went all over the country. Inevitably, on our way out of town, she would suddenly yell, “Stop!” at a certain point and then drag us from the car to stand on the side of the road where we were in mortal danger of getting trampled by a roving band of sheep.
“Here is where Johnny Cash stood when he wrote The Forty Shades of Green she would proudly tell us. Every. Single. Time. Eight. Thousand. Times.
It got to the point where my first cousin couldn’t take it anymore and every time we got near that darn mountain, she would mutter under her breath, “Forty shades of green my foot. I’d like to show him forty shades of black and blue!” (We were 12, so it was a lot funnier then. Really)
Anyway, here are two of those forty shades in the form of cheesecake.
FYI: This looks like a long recipe, but I swear to you I knocked it out in about an hour, even with waiting for the cookies to cool. If you want, you can use prepackaged chocolate cookies instead of making your own, and really cut down on the time.
For the base:
- 1/2 cup flour (I recommend a very light flour like pastry or Bob’s Red Mill all purpose baking)
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons cacao powder
- 1 Tablespoons almond milk
- 1 Tablespoons coconut oil
- 1/4 teaspoon chocolate extract
- 1/4 cup maple sugar (NOT maple syrup)
Directions:
- In a small mixing bowl, combine the milk, oil, extract and sugar.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and cacao.
- Add the dry to the wet and mix to form the dough.
- Form into balls (a bit smaller than ping pong balls) and put them on a lined baking sheet. Flatten them, but don’t be concerned about the shape because you are going to crush them up later.
- Bake at 350 for about 12 minutes. (I got about 12 cookies)
- Let them cool.
- Using a high speed blender, crush up the cookies so that they resemble sand. You should have approximately 1 cup of crushed cookies.
To make the crust:
- 1 cups crushed cookies
- 2 Tablespoons coconut oil
Mix the cookies and oil until well combined, then put a scant teaspoon into oiled (or paper lined) mini-muffin cups (makes about 2 dozen) and press them into the bottom firmly (it doesn’t have to be perfect or even perfectly flat. The cheese on top will hide any imperfections).
Put them back into the 350 oven for 12 minutes, then remove and let cool completely.
For the filling:
- 2 containers of Kite Hill almond cream cheese (8 oz each) Room temperature.
- 1 cup of monk fruit (you will need to put it in the blender and turn it into powder (like confectioners sugar. Otherwise, your cheesecake will be a bit crunchy)
- 1 cup of lightly packed mint leaves
- 1/2 cup lightly packed spinach (yes, spinach. Promise no one but you will know it’s there)
- 1 -2 teaspoon peppermint extract (Start with 1 teaspoon, taste and adjust from there)
****The other option here is to use the cream cheese, the monk fruit, and the extract, but instead of the spinach and mint, add 1/2 teaspoon of spirulina.
Put all ingredients for the cream cheese into a high speed blender (I used a Vitamix) and puree till smooth and green.
Pour the cheese into the muffin tins on top of the cookie crusts and put in the freezer for at least an hour or two till hard.
To serve:
Remove from the freezer and by gently twisting the tins (sort of like an ice cube tray) and gently tapping them upside down on your counter, the cheesecakes will fall out (They should be frozen pretty hard, so you can’t hurt them).
Drizzle with melted chocolate (I used 1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips melted with 1 Tablespoon coconut oil then cooled to room temp)
Whatever you are going to consume, put in the refrigerator for an hour to defrost a bit before serving. Store the rest in the freezer till you are ready to eat them.
Enjoy!
