Strawberry cheesecake bites

Kara pinned something the other day that made me salivate!  Cheesecake piped into hollowed-out strawberries and topped with graham cracker crumbs - yes please!

Here's what you'll need (original post here):

• 2 dozen strawberries
• 8 oz. cream cheese (I used fat free and it was a big fat FAIL)
• 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 sleeve of graham crackers (this made way too much, so maybe 1/2 sleeve will do ya)

Wash your berries and then hollow out the white part in the middle with a paring knife:

Then mix up your cheesecake filling (cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla) - here's where the recipe derails for me.  I think it's because I used fat free cream cheese to save some calories, but the consistency of it once it's whipped doesn't go well with the intended texture of cheesecake.  I say go for the full fat version for better results - or use the filling from a no-bake cheesecake, like this one.

Put your graham crackers into a ziploc bag and bang that shit with a meat tenderizer!  Take out all your stresses on these crackers - the more mashed up, the better :)

Now you're ready for assembly.  From the looks of sugarderby's version of the cheesecake bites, she piped the filling into the strawberry, but when I tried that the filling flowed freely out of the tip of the pastry bag without me putting any pressure on it.  It was like milk flowing out of a carton.  What a mess!  I tried adding more confectioner's sugar, chilling it for a few hours, and still no better results.

Since the taste was right, we decided to improvise.  Rather than assembling them all myself, I spooned some of the filling into 2 ramekins (one for each of us).  We each got a plate of strawberries, a ramekin of filling, and another ramekin of graham cracker crumbs, and assembled each ourselves.

I took this right before the filling overflowed from the strawberry back into the bowl...

Presentation:  FAIL
Taste:  PASS

I'd call that a success :)