Black Forest Mini Cheesecakes

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a medium bowl, mix together crushed Oreos and melted butter.

Line a standard sized muffin tin with paper liners.

Add a heaping tablespoon of the cookie crumb mixture to each liner, press with the back of a spoon to form the crust.

Bake for 5 minutes.

Remove from the oven, set aside to cool while preparing the filling.2.

In a small bowl stir together sugar, cocoa powder and salt.

In a large mixing bowl add soften cream cheese and sugar/cocoa mix.

Beat with an electric mixer until smooth, add melted chocolate, heavy cream and sour cream, beat until combined.

Add eggs, one at a time and mix well after each, then add in vanilla.

Tap the bowl on the counter firmly a couple of times to release any air bubbles.3.

Divide batter between the cupcake liners (liners will be full).

Tap the pan a couple of times to be sure there are no large air bubble.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the centers jiggle just slightly.

(Original recipe called for baking time of 17-20 minutes, mine were done at the 15 minute mark.) Remove pan from oven, let cool at room temp.

for 1 hour.

Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours or until fully cooled before topping.4.

Top the cheesecakes: In a medium bowl whisk together heavy cream, powdered sugar and vanilla.

Place the bowl in the refrigerator, along with the beaters from your mixer, for 10-15 minutes to get everything well chilled.

Add gelatin to a small bowl, add water.

When gelatin absorbs all the water microwave for about 10 seconds to heat and melt the gelatin and make it pourable.

Set aside to cool a bit.

Beat the cream until just before it reaches soft peak stage, check your gelatin to be sure it has cooled slightly but is still a pourable consistency (if it solidified, just pop it back in the microwave for a couple seconds).

With the mixer running, slowly pour in the gelatin and finish whipping the cream to soft peak stage.5.

Top the cakes with a generous spoon full of the whipped cream, using the back of a spoon make a little nest indentation in the top for the cherry filling.

Add a spoon full of the cherry filling and you're done.