Day 10: Candy Corn Cheesecake Cupcakes

We were going to go to an October birthday celebration and I was the one that was scheduled to bring the treats, so I came up with Candy Corn Cheesecake Cupcakes.  I got the inspiration for these from a couple of sources.  The actual recipe is from Skinny Taste.  The recipe is supposed to be a healthier version of cheesecake bites.  I made a slight variation to the recipe, which I will list later.  Then the idea to have it look like a candy corn came from Eighteen25 (it was a guest post from blogger Jamielyn from I Heart Naptime).  Well, it turns out that the playdate at the park didn't end up happening because it was rainy and stuff came up for everyone.  This meant that we got to enjoy these cupcakes all to ourselves!  It is a good thing that there were only 12 servings for this recipe!

Ingredients:
Filling:
-8 oz light cream cheese
-1/4 cup sugar
-1 tsp vanilla
-6 oz low-fat Greek yogurt (the original recipe called for nonfat vanilla Greek yogurt, but I already had plain low-fat on hand).
-2 large egg whites
-1 tbsp all-purpose flour
-yellow & red food coloring
-candy corn

*In the original recipe she had reduced fat vanilla wafers as the bottom of the cheesecakes.  I bought some vanilla wafers, but they were too small for the bottom of the cupcake liners so I did the following.

Crust:
-20 wafers (I would maybe do 30 wafers since 20 wasn't enough).
-2 tbsp melted unsalted butter

Directions:
-Heat oven to 350
-Line a cupcake pan with 12 liners

Crust:
-Chop of the wafers in a food processor until they are crumbles.
-Add the butter and mix until combined.
*They were too buttery so I should have added in more wafers or cut the butter amount down.
-Put a portion of the crust in the bottom of each liner.  Push down on the crumbs to make it firm.

Filling:

-Gently beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth with an electric mixer.
-Gradually beat in the yogurt, egg whites, and flour.
-Separate the batter into three bowls with each bowl have a little less than the previous bowl.
-With the bowl with the most batter add in yellow and red food coloring and mix until you get the desired orange color you want.
-The bowl with the middle amount of batter add in yellow food coloring until it reaches your desired consistency.
-Leave the last bowl the color of white.

 -Add in the yellow color first to the cupcake liners that are already filled with the crust.  I don't know how much for each because I just eyeballed it.

-Add in the orange on top of the yellow.

-Lastly, add the white batter on top of the orange.  I didn't have enough white batter to cover the tops of the "cupcakes," but I kind of like the look of them not being completely covered.

-Bake for 20-25 minutes until the center is almost set.
-Add in a candy corn in the center of each cupcake
-Cool to room temperature
-Chill for at least an hour in the refrigerator

-Take out and serve!  I wish that I got a picture of what they looked like layered!

Enjoy these because they were very yummy!

Heather