Easy Cheesecake Cupcakes

Due to my hectic schedule, I was not intending to cook up anything for the February Home Baker's Challenge, which is being hosted by Siri of The Brave Cook. She had given a list of Valentine bakes which were really irresistible, but all of them needed some time and patience to make that I was considering not doing it. That is when my eyes fell on this recipe in the list. One Friday, to be precise the Friday when Valentine's Day fell, I made this as dessert for lunch. Let me do this with a disclaimer that we don't celebrate this day at all! It just happened that I ended up baking on that day, hehe... Even though it was slightly on the more sweet side with the DDL contributing to the sweetness even more, every body enjoyed it, considering that the portions served were also quite small to enjoy after a heavy meal!

Ingredients:

1 package (200 gm) Philadelphia Light cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp almond extract
Dulche de leche for topping

Method:

Preheat oven at 160 degrees. Keep ready your 6-muffin pan with liners, or like I did, you can use silicon muffin liners on a baking pan.

Beat the cheese with a hand-held mixer till smooth. Beat in the sugar, egg and the extract one after the other till all gets well incorporated. Divide equally among the liners and bake for 20 minutes.

Allow the cupcakes to cool completely. Top with some DDL and serve as an after-food dessert!!!


Notes:

1. Despite using only 1/3 cup sugar instead of 1/2 cup as per the recipe, I found the cupcake too sweet, even without the DDL!
2. You can use any extract, vanilla or otherwise for your favorite flavor.
3. I was intending to keep an Oreo and the bottom of the muffin and bake the cheesecake, but my B who was supposed to buy it along with the cheese, conveniently forgot it, so I skipped it! :)