Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cheesecakes made lightened up with Greek yogurt and cutting back on the sugar a tad too! Gluten-free friendly using your favorite gluten-free graham crackers or crunchy cookies.
This post is sponsored in partnership with California Giant Berry Farms. All opinions expressed, as always, are my own. Thank you for supporting Fit Mitten Kitchen!
Don’t miss the end of the post – we have awesome giveaways happening!
LOL. So I am listening to Spotify at the moment and a holiday commercial came on for Jared (jewelry). I heard something along the lines of “…because getting her a blender just didn’t sound right…”
HOLD UP.
I would LOVE a blender for Christmas. Actually a specific blender, but I digress… The point is I would absolutely prefer a blender over a piece of jewelry. Anyone else with me on that?! I’m sure some of you are shaking your heads.
Anyways it’s DECEMBER 1st!! Which means it’s officially time to get in the holiday spirit. Drew and I will be working on getting our tree this weekend and decorating around the house. Our first Christmas in the new house! I am so excited. We finally repainted the living room which means I can hang things on the walls, and also fully refurnish and decorate. Only took us… YIKES–six months.
.
.
.
Totally just got side-tracked looking for holiday decor now. Target has this super cute teal snowflake pillow – obviously in my cart.
ALRIGHT. Before I get even more distracted by all things home decor and holidays, let’s chat about
Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cheesecakes
I feel like everyone needs cheesecake during the holidays… Am I wrong? I think cheesecake is the perfect dessert for the holidays. Who doesn’t like cheesecake?! Okay, I am sure there are some of you out there but, come on. What’s not to like?! It’s creamy, sweet and helloooo graham cracker crust.
And this version just so happens to be covered in chocolate… AND strawberries. So we’re talking chocolate covered strawberries on little individual cheesecakes. Basically the best thing ever.
what you need
graham cracker crumbs (gluten-free if necessary)
butter
cream cheese
greek yogurt
eggs
sugar
vanilla
chocolate
strawberries
Making these strawberry cheesecakes requires a few different steps (and a little patience with the chilling) but all in all pretty simple.
The first part is baking the graham cracker crust – just 10 minutes in the oven.
While the crust is baking you can prepare the filling – use an electric mixer to beat together the cream cheese, Greek yogurt, sugar and eggs. I’d suggest making sure all of the ingredients are room temperature to ensure even mixing. After the mixture is smooth, evenly divide between muffin pan and bake for about 20 minutes. Then you must chill… and by chill I mean both figuratively and literally. Just chill out (or do the dishes) while the cheesecakes are chilling in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
Then it’s on to the fun part: CHOCOLATE COVERED STRAWBERRIES.
We’re using California Giant strawberries for this recipe. I’ve been a brand ambassador for them this year and not only love their berries but working with them has been a dream. Literally. Strawberries are my absolute favorite and getting to work with them and share recipes with you all has been a dream come true.
Plus California Giant strawberries are perfect for dipping in chocolate (because they’re GIANT) making them extra perfect for these strawberry cheesecakes.
Once you’ve dipped the strawberries into the chocolate and allowed them to set, you can pop the cheesecakes back into the fridge until ready to enjoy.
These Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cheesecakes are perfect for any occasion really. I hope you try them!
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Prep Time: 2 hours - Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours 20 minutes
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Yield: 12 individual cheesecakes
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Ingredients
for the crust:
- 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 10-12 crackers)
- 4 TBS butter, melted
for the filling:
- 16oz cream cheese, softened (lite or full-fat)
- 1/2 cup Greek yogurt (I used plain whole milk but vanilla works too)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
for the topping:
- 10oz quality chocolate chips
- 1 TBS coconut oil
- strawberries, washed and dried (you need at least 12)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325F. Line 12 muffin tins with foil liners. Lightly spray with oil. Set aside.
- In a small food processor or blender (I used my NutriBullet) process graham crackers into crumbs. Transfer crumbs into bowl with melted butter and combine until moist.
- Evenly divide graham cracker mixture between the 12 liners, pressing with back of tablespoon to flatten.
- Bake graham cracker crust for 8-10 minutes. Set aside to cool while you make the filling.
- In a medium mixing bowl using electric mixer, beat softened cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add in yogurt and sugar, beating again until smooth. Then add in eggs and vanilla, combining until smooth.
- Evenly distribute cheesecake batter into liners with baked graham cracker crusts. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the middle is set.
- Remove from oven and allow pan to cool to room temperature, then place in fridge to chill for 2 hours. You can also prepare the cheesecakes 1 day in advance.
- Once the cheesecakes have chilled (up to 24 hours) you can prepare the chocolate: Place chocolate chips and oil in medium microwave-safe bowl. Microwave in 20 second increments, stirring in between until fully melted.
- Spoon chocolate over cheesecakes and allow to set – this should be fairly quick because the cheesecakes are cold.
- Once the cheesecakes have been covered in the chocolate, dip strawberries into melted chocolate and place in center of cheesecakes. Continue this process until all cheesecakes have a chocolate covered strawberry. See notes below about using “ganache” instead of just melted chips.
- Use leftover chocolate for dipping more strawberries. You can make a tray with both the chocolate covered strawberry cheesecakes and regular dipped strawberries. Enjoy!
Notes
Prep time includes chill time.
recipe adapted from my key lime cheesecakes
Notes on the chocolate: If you don’t want the chocolate to harden too much once chilled you can make more of a ganache – 1 cup chocolate chips to 1/2 cup heavy cream or full-fat coconut milk. Simply warm the milk over medium heat then pour in the chocolate chips and stir until smooth. The chocolate will be thinner but it won’t get as hard in the fridge after chilling.
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Happy Holidays! <3
amanda -runtothefinish says
Love the little finger foods for the holiday parties, that way I can sample all kinds of things 🙂 these look so delicious
Alysia | Slim Sanity says
I LOVE CHEESECAKE!!! And anything chocolate. So I’m pretty much hooked. 🙂
Rachel says
These look legit amazing. I would say I’d try to replicate but there’s no way I could make them look anywhere near as pretty as you have!
Jenn says
It’s hard to find good berries this time of year in the midwest, but these certainly look delicious! Beautiful photos.
Lorie says
Such a creative recipe. Love a good spin on a classic. Especially cheesecake!
Patricia Israel says
Best recipes ever
Whitney E. RD says
These are adorable and they look delicious! My dad is a huge cheesecake lover – thinking I’ll make these for him at Christmas!
Kristina @ Love & Zest says
These look so good! I love little desserts like this!
Skylar says
What kind of chocolate chips do you use?
Ashley says
For these I used Ghirardelli semi-sweet 🙂
LC says
How do you make it GF? Subbing the graham crackers for gf? Have you tried it. I’ve only had one GF graham and it was terribly hard
Ashley says
Hi there! I have made a gluten-free cookie crust using Simple Mills Pecan cookies, that lend themselves to a graham cracker taste. Also Pamelas’ makes gluten-free graham crackers – I wouldn’t worry about how they are on their own since they get ground down 🙂 Hope that helps!