Martha Monday - Cookies & Cream Cheesecakes

As many of you may already know, I love to bake. Often, I will buy a new cookbook and find myself inspired to try some new recipes. Such was the case when I recently got the Martha Stewart Cupcake cookbook. As I flipped through the pages, I thought, "I could make that," or "I would eat this." And then I wondered, "What if I made all the cupcakes in the book? What if blogged my experiences doing it?" I was thinking like Julie & Julia but with cupcakes. Danielle & Martha? Whoa...

So it may take a few years, but on Mondays, please join me as I demonstrate a new recipe courtesy of the Martha Stewart Cupcakes cookbook.

This week, I wanted to start off with something easy to kick off Martha Mondays. I decided to go with the Cookies & Cream Cheesecakes. They look beautiful, and really, Oreo cheesecake? How could it be bad?

1) Preheat your oven to 275°. Start by lining 30 standard cupcake pans with white liners. (Well, you can use whatever color you want, but white works best for the big reveal at the end.)

2) Into each white liner, place an Oreo cookie on the bottom.

3) To make the batter, here's what you'll need:

2 pounds of cream cheese, room temperature

1 cup of sugar

1 tsp vanilla

4 eggs, room temperature

1 cup of sour cream

Pinch of salt

12 Oreo cookies, coarsely chopped

4) On medium-high speed, beat cream cheese until it is smooth. Gradually add 1 cup sugar until combined. Add 1 tsp of vanilla.

5) Add eggs, drizzling in a little bit at a time. Continue to beat until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, if needed.

6) Beat in sour cream and salt.
7) (This is the part where I went overboard. It's 12 Oreos. You could definitely do this with a knife. But last week I got a new food processor for my birthday and I wanted to test it out. So for the next 2 steps, I will show off my awesome food processing skills.) Load up 12 Oreos into the food processor.

8) Press pulse until the Oreos are coarsely chopped.

9) Stir the Oreos into the batter by hand. Combine them until they look like this.

10) Divide the batter evenly into the waiting cups. Just pile it right on top of the Oreos. Martha says that you're supposed to fill the liners until they're "almost full" which I thought I did. I would go one step further and say fill them. I didn't fill them enough, and then they were short. So mine are smaller than yours could be.

Bake in the 275° oven for about 22 minutes. Rotate once, halfway through cooking. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Then refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
This is what they will look like after they have been refrigerated.

The white liner really helps to show off the Oreo here! Isn't that cool? Though I wish I had picked one for a photo that was centered better. Oh well.

This is what it looks like upside down without the liner on.
And here's the money shot. I promise, it tastes as good as it looks, too!

So far, after one episode, Martha Monday looks like it will be a lot of fun. Stay tuned next week for a new recipe for Martha Monday!