Mini Cheesecakes

Besides cake, I wondered, "What would make a good dessert for a graduation party?" Yes, we still had the traditional cake, but there's cake at every graduation you go to and I wanted something different. How about cheesecake? And to make it easier for dishing up, how about mini cheesecakes in cupcake holders?

You can use any baked cheesecake recipe you want for these. I needed around 100 cakes and actually used two different recipes as I made a couple batches and ran out of sour cream. The second recipe contained eggs.

Since I was making over 100 of these, I made them three weeks in advance and froze them. Freezing this many little cakes left me hard-pressed for containers to keep them from getting freezer burnt. I used as many Tupperware containers as I could before resorting to other odd boxes. For the boxes, I wrapped them up with tinfoil and sealed them in a large plastic bag.

I baked them at 325 degrees for ten minutes and removed them onto a rack for cooling.

We waited to add the toppings until the morning of the graduation celebration. You can use just about anything you like! We decided to use three different toppings.

Cherry pie filling:

Kiwi:

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups:

To keep the toppings from falling off of the cheesecakes, we piped whipped topping onto the top of each cake. We hand printed a card for each topping and placed it in front of the appropriate cakes. I cannot even say which went over more than the other as they were all a huge hit!

Because we baked the cakes on a separate day from decorating them, and because we were extremely busy that morning, we forgot to take close-up photos after decorating the mini cheesecakes. So we made more! Only we were out of the pretty foil cups. We used the regular cupcake holders which didn't hold up as well. But the flavor was just as good! Mmmmm ...

Disclosure: The Excalibur Dehydrator link under "Other Sites" is an affiliated link. If you make a purchase using this link ~ you will receive free shipping, along with other specials. I also earn a small percentage to help support my blog. Thank you, your support is appreciated!!

Graduation Decor

For my daughter's graduation party I wanted to do something unique for the party decorations. I really wasn't sure what to use but knew I didn't want to spend much money on them since most of it goes into the trash after it's all said and done.

While doing some cleaning, I came across her ceramic bowl that she made in art class. This bowl was filled with several origami birds she enjoys making. An idea struck: Origami!

My daughter liked the idea and wanted to try origami flowers along with the birds. We decided to use white paper and finely coat them with black spray paint. We purchased the cheapest can of spray paint we could find and used regular copy paper for the origami.

We also purchased nine 1.5 pint Ball canning jars and put gravel in the bottom with one flower in each.

My daughter took two years of art class so we had enough artwork to incorporate into the decorations, including nine painted coasters. We placed each colored bird from the ceramic bowl on top of these coasters, two for each table.

And of course, how could we have a party without my traditional Kit-Kat wrappers? Four different photos with the same design. You can order these and other designs for your graduate here.

All of my daughter's creative artwork:

On the menu: Barbecue on buns, three variety of chips, potato salad, chocolate cake, and mini cheesecakes which I'll blog on later. Except for the barbecue and potato salad, all the extra food was placed behind the serving table so they could be easily accessible. The extra potato salad was kept refrigerated and the barbecue was heated on the stove from its frozen state as needed. The food table:

And now, the guest of honor, my creative young graduate: Keisha!

Disclosure: The Excalibur Dehydrator link under "Other Sites" is an affiliated link. If you make a purchase using this link ~ you will receive free shipping, along with other specials. I also earn a small percentage to help support my blog. Thank you, your support is appreciated!!