Orange Cranberry Cheesecake Cups
These easy Orange Cranberry Cheesecake Cups are the perfect lightened up dessert for fall and winter! The cheesecake is creamy, and decadent with delicious orange-vanilla flavor, and the topping is tart, sweet, and jammy. I love orange and cranberry flavors together, and this dessert lets them both shine! Making mini desserts in muffin tins is great because it’s the perfect amount to feel satisfied with a sweet treat. These Orange Cranberry Cheesecake Cups are simple and delicious, and each one is just 110 calories or 5 WW Points each on the current Weight Watchers plan. To view your current WW Points for this recipe and track it in the WW app or site, click here!
Not only are these Orange Cranberry Cheesecake Cups tasty, they also come together with minimal effort. The “crust” is just a Nilla Wafer, so there’s no need to grind up graham crackers. After placing the cookies into baking cup liners in a standard-sized muffin tin, you’ll just mix together cream cheese, Greek yogurt, and a few other simple ingredients and spoon it into the liners. Then bake! When the cheesecakes are cooling, you put some cranberries in a saucepan for a few minutes, add a cornstarch slurry and a bit of sugar and orange juice and let it thicken. Spoon the cranberry topping onto the cheesecakes and chill until they’re cold. That’s it! The hardest part is waiting for them to chill.
Baking Cups/Cupcake Liners
In case you’re wondering how I made muffin tin cheesecakes without the ridges around the outside from the liners, I used Simply Baked Baking Cups I found at Wegmans. They’re basically just thick paper baking cups, and if you search baking cups on Amazon you’ll find similar ones from a bunch of different brands. You can either tear the paper cup off after cooling like I did for my photos, or you can serve them right in the little cups (they have all types of patterns and colors) and let people spoon the cheesecake out. I usually use regular paper liners and my muffin tins when making these cheesecakes, but I will say that these baking cups do make for smoother, cuter photos. Just wanted to be transparent about the lack of ridges on my cheesecakes!
Ingredient Notes
- Cranberries: This recipe uses fresh cranberries! You can also use frozen ones you’ve defrosted a bit. I usually buy a few bags of cranberries during the holidays and keep them in my freezer so that I have them available for baking year-round.
- Orange: One large-ish orange should give you the juice and zest you need for this recipe. Orange and cranberry flavors are so tasty together, but if you don’t have an orange on hand and want to make cheesecakes with cranberry topping anyway you can omit the zest and use lemon juice in place of the orange juice.
- Nilla Wafers: These cookies work nicely on the bottom of mini cheesecakes with minimal effort and not a lot of added calories. If you want to amp up the flavor a little bit, feel free to try using a ginger snap for the “crust” instead!
- Yogurt: I pretty much always add Greek yogurt to my cheesecake because it lightens it up a bit and adds flavor and creaminess. My favorite to use is Dannon Light & Fit Greek yogurt, which comes in a four-pack and is available at most grocery stores!
More Perfectly Portioned Dessert Recipes
If you want to see more perfectly portioned sweet treats, check out my dessert category for favorites like Strawberry Cheesecake Cups, Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Cups, Blueberry Cheesecake Mini Tarts, Baked Stuffed Apples, Gingerbread Cheesecake Cups, Banana Chocolate Wonton Bites, Pumpkin Pie Bites, Apple Cinnamon Cheesecake Cups, Chocolate Chip Cannoli Cups, Key Lime Cheesecake Cups, Mixed Berry Mini Tarts, Carrot Cake Cupcakes, Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries, Dark Chocolate Orange Cupcakes, Mini Cinnamon Apple Tarts, Berries & Cream Cinnamon Dessert Cups and more!
Orange Cranberry Cheesecake Cups
Ingredients
- 12 Nilla Wafer cookies
- 8 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 5.3 oz container of fat free vanilla Greek yogurt, (I use Dannon Light & Fit)
- 6 tablespoons sugar, divided
- 2 tablespoons orange juice, divided
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1 tablespoon orange zest
- 1 ½ cups fresh cranberries
- 2 tablespoons warm water
- 1 ½ teaspoons cornstarch
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375. Place cupcake liners into 12 cups of a standard sized muffin/cupcake tin and place a Nilla Wafer in the bottom of each liner.
- In a large bowl, combine the cream cheese, yogurt, five tablespoons of the sugar, a tablespoon of the orange juice, vanilla, and egg and mix together using an electric mixer until smooth and well combined. Stir in the orange zest until spread throughout. Spoon the mixture evenly on top of the nilla wafers in the prepared liners and spread flat with a spatula or the back or a spoon. Bake for 15-16 minutes and remove from oven to cool.
- While the cheesecake cups are cooking, mist a small saucepan with cooking spray and bring over medium heat. Add the cranberries and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. In a small dish, stir together the cornstarch and warm water until smooth and add to the cranberries. Add the remaining tablespoon of orange juice and tablespoon of sugar and stir to combine. Allow the strawberry mixture to bubble and thicken. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 1-2 minutes. Remove from heat and cover until needed.
- Once the cheesecake cups have cooled to room temperature, spoon the cranberry topping evenly over the center of each cup and transfer the topped cheesecake cups to the refrigerator. Chill for at least one hour. Serve chilled.
Notes
110 calories, 12 g carbs, 9 g sugars, 5 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 3 g protein, 1 g fiber, 105 mg sodium (from myfitnesspal.com) Weight Watchers Points Plus:
3 per cheesecake cup (PP calculated using a Weight Watchers PointsPlus calculator and the nutrition info below)
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