No Bake Lemon Cheesecake Cups

We are sharing super easy recipe that combines no bake cheesecake and sugar cookies, how can you possibly go wrong!? No bake lemon cheesecake served in sugar cookies cups makes a fabulous and easy dessert. You can dress up this mini cheesecake recipe with sprinkles, berries, chocolate ganache and more! It's a perfect summer treat that is cool, creamy and refreshing!

The first time I made this recipe, figuring out how to make sugar cookie cups was the easy part! I took an assist from our favorite "Dough Boy" and purchased refrigerated sugar cookie dough. It even comes pre-measured in 24 one tablespoon scoops for you to just drop in a muffin pan, like they were meant to be mini sugar cookie cups! I used my favorite mini muffin pan from Chicago Metallic since it has larger cavities than other brands, measuring at 1 1/2 inch diameter. This is the pan that works best with our famous midi sized two bite cupcake liners too!

The filling for these mini cheesecake bites.... now that was a different story! I am not a huge fan of cream cheese, but my husband loves it! He is always happy to help out and be my designated taste tester. My first attempt left him making a funny face asking, "um, what is this I am supposed to be tasting?!" I tried just cream cheese, sugar, lemon and a little vanilla bean paste. The texture was not quite right, so I ran to the store and grabbed some whipping cream. After adding a bit more sugar, some lemon oil and gently folding in whipped cream we had a winner! The whipped cream created a light and creamy filling that was not too sweet and complemented the sugar cookie cup very well.

This quick cheesecake recipe can be made a day ahead, both the cookies and the filling. I used our jumbo open star frosting tip to pipe the no bake lemon cheesecake filling in each sugar cookie cup. For decoration our traditional rainbow jimmies added some color and everybody loves sprinkles!

No Bake Lemon Cheesecake Cups

Sugar Cookie Cups:
1 package of refrigerated sugar cookie dough
unsalted butter or coconut oil
mini muffin pan with 1 1/2 inch cavities

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Prepare your mini muffin pan by generously greasing each cavity with unsalted butter or coconut oil. A non-stick mini muffin pan will work best for this recipe. Drop the scoops of chilled cookie dough into each cavity. If you prefer your own homemade dough, use about 1 tablespoon per cup. Press the dough into the cups so it goes about 3/4 of the way up. You don't have to be too precise here, the dough will rise during baking.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until each cup is lightly browned along the edges and the center is fully cooked. Once removed from the oven let the cookie cups cool in the pan for 5-7 minutes. To remove them simply give the cookies a little twist in the pan to loosen them up, then use a spoon or butter knife to gently lift them out and onto a cooling rack. Cool completely before filling.

No Bake Lemon Cheesecake:
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4-1/2 cup sugar
juice and zest from 1 small lemon
1 teaspoons vanilla bean paste or extract
a few drops of Lorann Lemon Oil
dash of salt
1/2 pint whipping cream

Place the cream cheese in a large bowl. Mix in sugar, lemon juice, zest lemon oil, vanilla bean paste and salt. Mix on high with an electric mixer until well blended and the mixture thickens up a bit.

In a separate bowl, whip the cream until you get stiff peaks. Be careful not to over mix unless you would like some fresh homemade butter! Gently fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture and refrigerate until ready to pipe into cookie cups. To fill the cups place a large open star jumbo tip into a frosting bag. Fill the bag with the cheesecake filling and pipe into each sugar cookie cup. Add the sprinkles or toppings of your choice and refrigerate until ready to serve!

This recipe makes 24 mini cheesecake bites.

No bake cheesecake recipes are always crowd pleaser and we hope yours disappear as quickly as ours did!

Cheers!

~the girls

This post was written by Shauna, styled and photographed by Esther of The Bakers Party Shop. If you share a photo from our post a link must be displayed back to this post and credit given to The Bakers Party Shop. All photos and content are copyright of The Bakers Party Shop & The Bakers Confections, All rights reserved 2015.