Chocolate Dipped Cheesecake Bites

Ingredients:
Crust:
-2 C graham crackers, pulverized, I made my own, recipe found here.
-4 TB cold butter, cut into pieces
-1/2 C sugar if you do not put a cinnamon sugar coating on your grahams, if you do feel free to cut this back to a scant 1/4 C
-1 jumbo egg

Cheesecake:
-3 packages cream cheese
-3 jumbo eggs
-1 C sugar
-1 tsp vanilla

Topping: 1-2 large packs of Nestle Dark Chocolate, or other chocolates and coating as desired

Pulse the grahams in a food processor until they make a delicate dust (said in a fancy voice for added pizzazz).  Add the butter and pulse again a couple times, then add the egg and process until it comes together as a dough.

Line a 9x13 pan with parchment paper, and press the crust into the bottom (even though it was parchment I stilled sprayed mine with PAM just in case).  Bake at 325F for about 14 minutes or until set. 

While it is baking, mix your cheesecake ingredients.  I usually mix the cream cheese and sugar first because I assume the friction of the sugar will break down the cream cheese that I should have at room temperature but somehow never quite put it out soon enough...  Then mix in the eggs and vanilla.

Pour over the hot crust, return to the oven, and bake for 35-45 minutes until the middle is just set.  I turned my temperature down to just over 300 after about 8 minutes or so because cheesecake in my oven tends to get the edges of things a little brown.  Like I always try to reiterate, every oven is different in my experience.  This one seems to bake hotter than the one at my real home.

Cool the cheesecake on a cooling rack until it can be transferred to the fridge.  Refrigerate for a couple hours.

I cut mine into squares when it was cool that were a little over an inch on each side.  I ended up getting about 54 out of mine, which would be 6 rows by 9 columns in my pan.  You can cut them as big or small as you like. 

Put them on a cookie sheet, it will be easier if it is lined with parchment but it is not inherently necessary, and pop them in the freezer for an hour or so.

Melt your chocolate according to package directions.  Working with a few at a time, remove the cheesecakes from the freezer, dip them in chocolate, and set them on wax paper to dry.  Repeat this process until all are dipped.

Refrigerate for at least an hour or so, or until it is time to serve these.  You could also keep these in the freezer like the ones you can buy at the store and have a decadent little frozen treat whenever a sweet tooth attacks.

These were a big hit at work and as you can see in the picture I used the strawberry topping that I made yesterday.  For that recipe, click here.

Happy crafting!