This recipe is for all you cheesecake lovers out there! These velvety, tangy no-bake mini cheesecakes — with their tart raspberry swirls and buttery graham cracker crusts — are so good!
Mini No-Bake Cheesecakes with Raspberry Swirls
These bright, beautiful little treats make the perfect dessert for spring (or summer). And with only 10 ingredients, they come together quickly and with very little effort.
Since these cheesecakes are no-bake, their texture is a little lighter and softer than regular cheesecake. And while they’re rich and creamy, they’re not too sweet thanks to some lemon juice and zest, along with the raspberry swirls.
This kid-approved recipe is adapted from one by Yossy Arefi. Her recipe makes one larger cheesecake. I’ve just hacked it to make these cute little individual ones. One note: depending on the size of your mini cheesecake pans, you might end up with some extra filling.
Tips for Making Raspberry Swirl Cheesecakes
A few things to know when making these:
- After assembling, these take about 8 hours in the refrigerator to set. This makes them a great make-in-advance dessert. But just a heads up — you’ll need to plan accordingly.
- Since these are no-bake cheesecakes, they need to stay cool until you’re ready to serve them. Otherwise, they’ll get soft and be more pudding-like in texture.
- If you want to remove them from the tart pans for serving, I’d use tart pans with a removable bottom like these.
- You can use fresh or frozen raspberries to make the sauce. And if you don’t have any raspberries, you could also use strawberries. You just might want to reduce the sugar if the strawberries are super sweet.
- These pretty swirls are easy to make. Check out this video for five ways how to make them.
Looking for more spring desserts? Try this easy strawberry tart or these strawberry rhubarb hand pies with lemon drizzle.
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No-Bake Mini Cheesecakes with Raspberry Swirls
- Yield: 8–10 mini cheesecakes 1x
Description
These pretty little no-bake cheesecakes with raspberry swirls and buttery graham cracker crusts are so good! Plus, they’re super easy to make.
Ingredients
For the Raspberry Purée:
- 2 1/2 to 3 cups (1 8-ounce bag) fresh or frozen raspberries, or berries of your choice
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
For the Graham Cracker Crust:
- 1 3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 15 sheets of crackers)
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- Pinch of salt
For the Cheesecake Filling:
- 16 ounces (2 packets) cream cheese, at room tempature
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup sour cream or plain, full fat Greek yogurt
- 1 cup heavy cream, cold
- Fresh berries, for serving (optional)
Instructions
To Make the Sauce:
- In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine the berries, sugar, and lemon zest.
- Cook the berries, stirring frequently, until the mixture comes to a simmer.
- Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the berries have broken down and sauce is thickened, 4 to 5 minutes.
- Pour the mixture into a fine mesh sieve set over a bowl, and press the raspberry purée through with a spatula. You should have about 3/4 cup of raspberry purée sauce.
- Disgard the seeds and chill the purée while you prepare the rest of the cheesecake.
To Make the Crust:
- Add the graham crackers sheets to the bowl of a food processor fitted with the blade attachment and pulse until you have fine crumbs. You will end up with about 1 3/4 cups. You can also make the crumbs in a Ziplock bag. Just add the sheets to the bag, seal it, and crush the crackers until you get crumbs.
- Pour the crumbs into a bowl (or leave them in the bowl of the food processor), and add the butter, sugar and salt, and stir or pulse until the butter is evenly distributed and the crumbs are moistened.
- Spray the inside of the mini tart pans with cooking spray, and divide the crumb mixture evenly between the pans.
- Use a measuring cup, firmly press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of the mini tart pans. Use your fingers to press the mixture into the fluted edges, if necessary.
- Refrigerate the crusts while you make the filling.
To Make the Filling:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, combine the cream cheese, sugar, lemon zest and juice, vanilla extract and salt.
- Mix on low speed until combined.
- Then, turn the mixer up to medium and beat until smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
- Stop the mixer and scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl to ensure even mixing. Then add the sour cream and stir until just combined.
- With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour in the cream. Turn the speed up to high and whip until thick and fluffy, about 5 minutes, stopping to scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl, as needed.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared crusts and use an offset spatula to smooth the top.
- Dot the top with the chilled raspberry purée.
- Using a paring knife or a wooden skewer (or toothpick), swirl the purée into the cream cheese mixture.
- Chill at least 8 hours and up to overnight.
- Serve cold (in or out of their pans) with fresh raspberries and any leftover raspberry purée, if desired.
Notes
- Depending on the size of your mini tart pans, you might end up with extra filling.
- Want ideas on how to swirl your sauce? Check out this video.
- Can be stored, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.