Coconut & Lime

Ingredients:
8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
1 egg, at room temperature
1 graham cracker, smashed*
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup semisweet chocolate mini chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Line a 6 cupcake pan with papers, evenly divide the graham cracker crumbs to cover the bottoms of the papers. In a large bowl, thoroughly combine the sugar, cream cheese, egg, vanilla and sugar. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill each paper cup with about 3/4 cup batter. Bake 18-20 minutes. Allow to cool** in the pan for 5 minutes then remove from the pan and refrigerate them for about 40 minutes or until firm. Serve as is or garnish. Be sure to refrigerate any leftovers in a tightly sealed container.


*An easy way to smash a graham cracker is to place it in a plastic bag and whack it with the back of a spoon.


**As they cool, the cheesecakes may "fall" a little bit, leaving an indentation on the top. This is perfectly normal and doesn't not effect the taste. In fact, you could even use this indentation as a place for a garnish of whipped cream or a bit of chocolate.

My thoughts:

This is truly the easiest dessert I have ever made. Total prep time from smashing the cracker to filling the pan was maybe 7 minutes. The hardest part was waiting for them to cool and set. I kept peeking in on them but they did take the full 40 minutes to cool and set up. It's worth it though, eating a tiny, creamy cheesecake with little bits of dark chocolate really perks up an evening.