Key Lime Cheesecake

Happy birthday 'merica.  I had a great time on the 4th with some old friends from Abilene. We grilled out at Katherine (Cox) and Taylor Ansley's (of Dinner with Taylor and Katherine fame) and ate very well with grilled flank steak, brats, sliders, delicious potato salad and broccoli slaw, and watermelon, and then Katherine's homemade cookies and cream ice cream and my mini key lime cheesecakes for dessert...

Here is Kat making her killer margaritas. 

I chose key lime because key lime pie is one of my favorite summer desserts. I hadn't made a cheesecake in a while, so I combined the two. I chose this recipe because it was relatively low on sugar and used sour cream. It also let me use the mini cheesecake pan from the lemon-thyme cakes for, ya know, cheesecake. 

I added some flaked coconut to the graham crust. I think it worked well with the lime, going with Caribbean flavors. I also found a bottle of actual Key lime juice, which added a nice tartness and also eliminated the need to juice 50 tiny limes. I did that once, and will never do it again.

The mini cakes puffed up really quickly, so I probably should have greased the sides; note for next time. They ended up collapsing after I took them out of the oven. I was a little upset at first, but that's why we have whipped cream right?

You can see how they ended up forming little cups here.

I only had one mini-pan, so I used the other half of the batter to make 6" cakes

To finish off the cheesecake, I whipped up some cream flavored with a healthy dose of aged rum and sliced strawberries. The rum flavor ended up being overpowered by the intense lime flavor of the cake, but I imagined it worked well anyway. Anyway...I liked this recipes a lot and will definitely make it again.