Chocolate Chip Mini Cheesecakes

First, I want to make it clear that I snagged this from Pinterest and made it my own. Look at the original recipe first. She actually knows what she's doing. I do not. I just piddle until I get something that looks decent, and this actually turned out tasting pretty good too.

First, preheat the oven to 350.
Line 10 muffin cups.

Start your crust:

1 cup chocolate graham cracker crumbs (about 5 whole crackers)
2 1/2 tbsp butter melted
2 tbsp brown sugar

I used a big ol' Ziploc bag to crumble up my graham crackers, then mixed in the brown sugar. Next, I poured the melted butter in my baggie so that it could all mesh real nicely together. Then, I got out a spoon and pressed the crust mixture into the bottom of each muffin liner. It ended up being about a tbsp and a pinch per liner of crust.

For the cheesecake:

1/2-3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
8 oz. softened cream cheese
1 egg
2 tbsp. sour cream
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Put your cream cheese, sugar and sour cream in the mixer and blend it til it's smooth. I did not do this like the girl on the website said, and it turned out a little lumpy. So make sure you follow her steps! After everything is nice and smooth, beat in your egg and vanilla.

Now, the original recipe called for 1 cup chocolate chips, but I wasn't sure if that would be too chocolate-y for me or not, so I cut down and I am glad I did. Sprinkle a few chocolate chips on top of the crust in each liner. Start by putting 1 tbsp of cheesecake batter into each liner, on top of the chocolate chips. You're going to have a bunch left over, so just keep portioning it out until it looks good to you, or at least evenly divided. After your cups are full, sprinkle a few more chocolate chips on top of each cheesecake.

Set your pan in the oven for 25 minutes, but CHECK IT A LOT. My edges browned and my crust was a little hard. It also cracked on top, but filled itself in after I let it cool.

After you remove it from the oven, let your cheesecakes sit for about 10 minutes, then remove each one and place it on a wire cooling rack (leave them in the liners!). Once they are completely cooled, stick them in the fridge until they are chilled, and hooray! Instant dessert.

Note: My husband did not like the chocolate chips. He said the chocolate crust made it sweet enough. Leave them out if you like. I plan on trying a strawberry swirl next.

Here is the link for the original recipe. Hers look a good bit prettier than mine, but hey, I did it!

Original Recipe