Cherry Pie Cheesecake Tart

Have you ever created a recipe out of things that you had leftover that actually turned out to be a great recipe?

That's how this recipe was born.

I had a brick of cream cheese that was only missing a tablespoon so I wanted to use it up and I also had a can of cherry pie filling with 2 spoonfuls out of it that I wanted to use up. I also had about 2 cups of streusel that was leftover from a banana crumb recipe to use up. AAAAAAAAAAnd, I also had 1/3 of a recipe of pie dough to use up.  

Turns out putting those 4 things into a recipe was pretty ingenious of me.

Why yes, I am feeling pretty proud of myself, thank you for asking.

Cherry Pie Cheesecake Tart

Ingredients

1/3 recipe pie crust 

Streusel

1 cup flour

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter, chilled



1 can Cherry Pie Filling (about 2 cups)

Filling

1 8 oz brick cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 400.

Roll out pie dough and line 2 (approx) 9 inch tart pans, pressing dough up sides of pans. Prick dough with a fork to prevent air bubbles.

Bake in 400 oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and turn oven down to 350.

Combine streusel ingredients in a bowl. You want to cut in butter with 2 knives or a pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Mix cherry pie filling with 3/4 cup of the streusel mixture. Spread cherry mixture evenly over pie crust.

In another bowl, blend together cream cheese filling ingredients until smooth. Spread over cherry mixture.

Sprinkle with remaining crumbs.

Place in 350 oven and bake approx 45 - 55 minutes, or until golden brown.

Let cool on wire racks. Remove from tart pans, slice and serve. You can serve this warm but the flavors are much stronger if you serve it cold (or at least room temp).

You can't really see it in the first photo but there is a little ribbon of white on top of the red that looks really pretty. I thought the pie dough on the bottom added an interesting twist instead of just a graham cracker crust or something similar.

So, not the fanciest recipe on the planet but it could be in the running for one of the tastiest. I mean, come on: cream cheese, streusel, cherry pie filling, pie crust.....what's NOT to love about that.

Stop by Hungry Little Girl and Adorned From Above for some great links!