Baby, Its Cold Outside!

It's cold outside! And cold, to me, is the best excuse on the planet to dig around the baked goods cabinet and whip up some Christmas goodies.

For Thanksgiving, I decided it would be a great idea to make a cheesecake - a venture that eventually took me 12 hours. Unfortunately for me, my housemate/significant other loves cheesecake and not wanting to spend 12 hours making a Christmas themed cheesecake I toyed around with a cheesecake bite recipe and came up with a 4 (ish) ingredient cheesecake bite.

You'll need is:

• a package of pre made gingerbread cookie dough
• 2 cups of powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
• an 8oz package of (room temperature) cream cheese.

In a bowl or stand mixer, mix the cream cheese, vanilla, and powdered sugar. While that is mixing (until smooth), get out a mini muffin pan, and portion out approximately two teaspoons of dough and roll it into balls filling each cup of the pan.

Using the back of the teaspoon, indent a pocket into the balls of dough. I dusted the spoon in powdered sugar to keep it from sticking too much.

Place the pan in an oven preheated to 350* for 4 minutes. In the meantime fill a piping bag or a gallon sized bag with the cream cheese mixture. At this point the gingerbread cups should be ready so using the piping bag, pipe the mixture into the cups in a circular pattern leaving a small peak at the top.

Place the pan back in the oven for another 5-6 minutes but watch it very carefully for the last minute to make sure that the cream cheese mixture doesn't liquefy.
Pull them out of the oven and let them set up for a couple minutes and there you go! Perfectly festive cream cheese bites!