DECADENT SAMOA CHEESECAKE CUPS | THE STUFF DREAMS ARE LITERALLY MADE OF

This magical dessert unicorn came to me in a dream and, friends, the dream was good: iconic Samoa Cookies transformed into airy cheesecake cups topped with a generous dollop of toasted coconut caramel and drizzled with chocolate. I woke up and frantically composed a shopping list. These had to be made and they had to be made immediately. 

The strangest part about this whole recipe is that I don't even like cheesecake. Never have. And yet, here I am extolling the virtues of Samoa cheesecake high and low. These will not disappoint you.

Do you see how substantial that cheesecake filling is? I took Skinny Taste's perfect cheesecake yogurt cups  recipe and unabashedly de-healthy-fied it by cramming it chock full of toasted coconut and chocolate chunks. Skinny Taste's recipe provides a simple and light base that just begs for ingredient remixing. I can't wait to try new combinations in the future.

DECADENT SAMOA CHEESECAKE CUPS

Inspired by Skinny Taste's Lemon Cheesecake Yogurt Cups 

For the Cheesecake

• 3/4 cup coconut, toasted
• 6 shortbread cookies or vanilla wafers
• 4 oz. neufchatel or cream cheese, softened
• 3 oz. fat free Greek yogurt (half of an individual-sized container)
• 1/8 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
• 1 large egg white
• 2 teaspoons flour
• 1 1/2 ounce semi-sweet baking chocolate squares, chopped into chunks

For the Toasted Coconut Caramel Topping

• 1/2 - 3/4 cup toasted coconut
• half a bag of caramel candy, melted
• 1 tablespoon milk
• pinch of salt 

For the Chocolate Stripes

• 2-3 ounces semi-sweet chocolate

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Toast all of the coconut (about 1 1/2-2 cups) in a nonstick skillet over medium heat (about 5 minutes). Let the coconut cool on a plate. Line muffin tin with six cupcake liners and place a cookie at the bottom of each one. Mix the cream cheese, Greek yogurt, sugar, coconut extract, egg, and flour. Fold in toasted coconut and chocolate chunks. Spoon evenly into the 6 cupcake liners. Bake for 25 minutes and cool on a wire rack.

While the cheesecakes are cooling, make the toasted coconut caramel topping. Melt the caramel candies over medium-low heat and stir in the milk and salt. Fold in 1/2 - 3/4 cup toasted coconut. Put 1-2 tablespoons on top of each cheesecake and smooth with the back of a spoon until relatively even. If it starts to harden, just put the caramel back over the heat until its easy to handle.

Melt 2-3 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate in a glass bowl in a microwave (will take 1-2 minutes). Use a fork to drizzle over the coconut caramel. If you have some leftover in your freezer, top each cheesecake with half of a Samoa cookie. These are best eaten the day of. The caramel will get rock hard if they sit in the fridge so allow them to come to room temperature if you store them in the fridge. Makes 6 cheesecakes because having a dozen of these in the house would be dangerous. Feel free to double the recipe to suit your needs.