Mini Egg Cheesecake Recipe (No Bake)

There are two sure signs that Easter is coming in our house. The first is that my youngest starts asking approximately six weeks in advance whether the Easter Bunny knows our address. The second is the moment Mini Eggs appear on the shelves, and all three of my kids lose their minds completely!

We actually call it Mini Egg season, which tells you everything you need to know about how seriously this family takes Cadbury’s finest. My eldest will eat them straight from the bag. My middle one hoards them. My youngest, who is eight and deeply committed to the Biscoff lifestyle, will inhale them while simultaneously asking whether we can make the cheesecake yet.

Because yes, there is a cheesecake. There is always a cheesecake. This no-bake Mini Egg cheesecake has been our Easter dessert for years, and it has earned that spot. It sets overnight in the fridge, which means it’s completely done and dusted before Easter Sunday even starts. When you’re juggling a roast, three children who’ve already eaten their own bodyweight in chocolate, and the eternal question of whether you’ve hidden enough eggs in the garden, having dessert sorted the day before is genuinely one of life’s small joys!

I’ve made this enough times to know exactly where it can go wrong, what shortcuts are worth taking, and which biscuit base will make your youngest declare you the best parent alive. 

Why no-bake is the right call at Easter

A baked cheesecake is a wonderful thing, but it requires attention, a water bath, and a certain amount of nerve. Easter Sunday is not the day for nerve. You’ve got enough on.

A no-bake cheesecake asks very little of you. You crush some biscuits, mix a filling, and then you put it in the fridge and leave it alone. The fridge does all the work while you get on with your evening. The result, if you follow a few simple rules, is a creamy, sliceable cheesecake that looks like considerably more effort than it was. That is exactly the kind of cooking I’m here for.

The base: digestive, shortbread, or Biscoff

Most Mini Egg cheesecake recipes default to digestive biscuits, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Digestives crush evenly, they’re reliably buttery, and they don’t compete with the filling for attention. If you want a neutral, classic base, digestives are your biscuit.

Shortbread is a third option worth knowing about. It gives you a richer, more crumbly base with a slight buttery sweetness. If you’re serving this to people who find cheesecake a bit sharp, a shortbread base softens the whole thing nicely.

But in this house we often use Biscoff biscuits, and I’d really encourage you to try it. The caramelised, slightly spiced flavour works brilliantly against the sweet milky chocolate of Mini Eggs. It’s not an overwhelming flavour at all, but it adds a depth that a digestive base doesn’t have, and it makes the whole thing feel a little more special. More on the Biscoff version below, because it deserves its own moment.

What you’ll need

The ingredients list here is short and unfussy, which is part of why this recipe works so well. A few things are worth being specific about:

Cream cheese: Use full-fat Philadelphia. This isn’t the moment for the lighter version. The fat content is what gives the cheesecake its structure, and a low-fat cream cheese has too much water in it. I’ve tried it. The result is closer to cheesecake soup than cheesecake. Philadelphia is also the most consistently thick cream cheese you’ll find in UK supermarkets, which matters for the set.

Double cream: Again, full fat, around 48%. You need a cream that will whip to stiff peaks and hold them. Single cream will not do this. Don’t be tempted to substitute.

Mini Eggs: Two bags is the working minimum. One bag goes into the filling, roughly crushed. Most of the second bag goes on top, with a small tax levied by whoever is helping in the kitchen. If Mini Egg season is in full swing and you can get three bags, do it. They sell out faster than you’d think, and I say that as someone who has done a last-minute Mini Egg dash around two supermarkets the week before Easter.

Icing sugar: Rather than caster or granulated, because it dissolves smoothly into the cream cheese without any grittiness.

Vanilla: A good vanilla makes a real difference in a cheesecake where there’s nothing to hide behind. If you have vanilla bean paste rather than extract, use it. The flavour is warmer and rounder, and you get those little flecks of vanilla pod in the filling, which looks lovely.

Unsalted butter: For the base. Melt it gently in a small pan or in a mug in the microwave in 20-second bursts.

How to make it

Start with the base. Blitz your biscuits in a food processor until they’re fine, even crumbs. If you don’t have a food processor, put them in a zip-lock bag and bash with a rolling pin. You want crumbs, not a powder and not large chunks. Run your fingers through the mixture and if you can still feel recognisable pieces of biscuit, keep going. Uneven crumbs mean a base that crumbles when you slice, which is nobody’s idea of a good time.

Stir the melted butter through the crumbs until every bit is coated. The mixture should start to clump together when you press a small amount between your fingers. If it still feels dry and loose, add a little more melted butter, a teaspoon at a time. Tip it into a 20cm springform tin and press it down firmly and evenly. The back of a spoon works, but your fingers are more effective for getting into the edges. Press firmly enough that the base feels compact and solid, not loose. Put it in the fridge while you make the filling.

For the filling, put the cream cheese, icing sugar, vanilla, and a small squeeze of lemon juice into a large bowl. Beat together with an electric hand mixer until completely smooth. There should be no lumps at all. If your cream cheese was cold from the fridge it can take a minute or two of mixing to get there, but keep going until the mixture looks glossy and uniform. This is your base; everything else builds on it.

In a separate bowl, whip the double cream. Take it straight from the fridge, not from the counter. Cold cream whips faster and, more importantly, holds its shape more reliably once it’s folded into the filling. Whip to stiff peaks: when you lift the whisk or beaters out of the bowl, the cream should hold a firm point that doesn’t flop over. If it curls gently at the tip, keep whipping for another 30 seconds. If it starts to look grainy or buttery, you’ve gone too far. At stiff peaks it’ll look smooth, thick, and matte rather than shiny.

Add the whipped cream to the cream cheese mixture in two or three additions, folding gently with a spatula each time. Use a slow, deliberate fold rather than stirring: cut down through the middle of the bowl, sweep along the bottom, and fold up and over. You’re trying to keep the air in the cream rather than knock it out. Once it’s all combined, the filling should be thick enough to hold its shape when you lift the spatula. If you drop a spoonful back into the bowl, it should sit on top rather than sinking in. If it looks at all sloppy or pourable, the cream wasn’t whipped firmly enough.

Now for the Mini Eggs. Put roughly two thirds of your first bag into a zip-lock bag and bash with a rolling pin until you have a mix of pieces. You want variety: some chunks about the size of a split pea, some a bit larger, the odd bit of shell dust. That mix of sizes gives you crunch in every forkful without the filling becoming difficult to slice. Fold them through the filling, then spoon the whole lot onto your chilled biscuit base. Smooth the top with a palette knife or the back of a spoon, working from the centre outwards. Get it as flat and even as you can.

Cover the tin loosely with cling film and refrigerate. Leave it for a minimum of six hours, but overnight is the better result. I always make this the evening before it’s needed. By the following afternoon it’s perfectly set, the base has had time to firm up fully, and the flavours have had a chance to settle together.

The Biscoff version

My youngest discovered Biscoff biscuits at around age five and has been evangelical about them ever since. A couple of years ago he started asking whether we could use them as the base for the Easter cheesecake, and we tried it mostly to keep the peace. It turned out to be a genuinely better cheesecake.

To make the Biscoff base, swap the digestive biscuits for Lotus Biscoff biscuits in exactly the same quantity. They’re slightly crispier than digestives, so they blitz down to a finer crumb, and they need marginally less butter to bind. Start with 100g of melted butter rather than 120g and see how the mixture feels before adding more. The base should look golden and smell like a caramel biscuit tin, which is already a very good sign.

The filling stays exactly the same. What changes is the overall flavour profile: you get that warm, caramelised, slightly spiced note from the base running underneath the sweet cream cheese filling and the milky crunch of the Mini Eggs. It sounds like it might be too much going on, but it isn’t. The Biscoff flavour is present but not dominant, and it gives the whole cheesecake a roundness that the digestive version doesn’t quite have.

For decoration on the Biscoff version, warm a couple of tablespoons of Biscoff spread in the microwave for about 15 seconds until it’s just pourable, then drizzle it over the cream and Mini Eggs before serving. My youngest considers this non-negotiable. He’s not wrong.

The tips that actually matter

Don’t rush the set. Six hours is the absolute minimum, and you may still find the centre a little soft. Overnight is almost always a better result. If you’re running late and the cheesecake isn’t quite firm when you take it out, put it in the freezer for 45 minutes before serving rather than the fridge. It firms up quickly without freezing solid, and a slightly frozen cheesecake slices more cleanly anyway.

Crushing Mini Eggs safely: They’re harder than they look and they roll. The zip-lock bag and rolling pin method is the safest. You can use a bowl and the end of a rolling pin, but cover the bowl with a tea towel first or you’ll be finding Mini Egg shrapnel in unexpected places for days. I speak from experience.

The colour bleed: The pastel shells on Mini Eggs will start to bleed their colour into the whipped cream topping after a while in the fridge. It’s not a disaster, and it happens to everyone, but it doesn’t look as pretty. Don’t add the cream and Mini Egg decoration until an hour or two before you serve. The cheesecake itself can sit in the fridge overnight without any issues; it’s just the decoration that needs to be added closer to the time.

Getting it out of the tin: Run a thin sharp knife around the inside edge of the springform tin before you release the clip. Go slowly and keep the knife flush with the side. If you’ve lined the base with a disc of baking parchment, getting it off the base is easy. If not, a palette knife slid gently underneath does the job.

Make-ahead and storage

This cheesecake is made for making ahead, which is most of the reason it’s become our Easter tradition. The cheesecake, without the cream decoration on top, will keep in the fridge for up to three days. That means you can make it on Good Friday for an Easter Sunday lunch and it’ll be at its absolute best: fully set, base properly firmed up, flavours settled.

Leftovers keep well covered in the fridge for two to three days, after which the base starts to soften. You can also freeze it without the cream topping for up to three months. Slice it first, wrap each slice in cling film, and defrost overnight in the fridge.

Decoration

The simplest finish is the best one. Whip some double cream with a little icing sugar and vanilla until it holds soft peaks, pipe or spoon it around the edge of the cheesecake, and pile Mini Eggs in the centre. A scattering of roughly crushed Mini Eggs over the cream adds texture and looks genuinely beautiful. That’s it. The cheesecake does the work; the decoration just needs to get out of the way.

If you want to go a little further, a drizzle of melted milk chocolate over the top before the Mini Eggs adds richness. Let it cool slightly before drizzling or it’ll melt the cream. And if you’ve gone for the Biscoff base, that drizzle of warm Biscoff spread over the top is, as previously mentioned, non-negotiable in this house.

Frequently asked questions

Can I make individual mini egg cheesecakes instead of one large one?

Yes, easily. Press the biscuit base mixture into individual glasses, ramekins, or a lined muffin tin. Make the filling exactly as above and spoon or pipe it on top. Individual portions need less time to set: four to five hours in the fridge is usually enough, since there’s less depth for the filling to hold.

My cheesecake hasn’t set. What went wrong?

The most common culprit is cream that wasn’t whipped firmly enough. It needs to reach stiff peaks before it goes into the filling: firm, matte, and holding a point when you lift the beaters. Softly whipped cream won’t give you the structure to set. The second common cause is low-fat cream cheese, which has too high a water content. If you’re stuck with a filling that won’t hold its shape, put the whole cheesecake, still in its tin, in the freezer for an hour before serving.

Can I use a different chocolate instead of Mini Eggs?

Absolutely. Crushed Creme Eggs work brilliantly in the filling if you want a more fudgy effect, though the fondant centre softens the texture a little. Chocolate chips or chopped milk chocolate are a straightforward swap any time of year. Crushed Oreos in the filling give you a completely different but equally good cheesecake.

Do I need a springform tin?

A springform tin makes life much easier because you can release the sides cleanly without damaging the cheesecake. If you don’t have one, a deep loose-bottomed cake tin works, or you can make it in a lined rectangular tin and serve it in squares. It won’t look quite as neat but it’ll taste exactly the same.

Can I make this gluten free?

Yes. Swap the digestive or Biscoff biscuits for a gluten-free alternative. The filling ingredients are naturally gluten free. For the Mini Eggs, check the packet as the labelling can vary, and if you’re cooking for someone with coeliac disease, check all your ingredients for cross-contamination warnings.

How far in advance can I make this?

Up to three days before serving, kept covered in the fridge. Hold off on the cream and Mini Egg decoration until a couple of hours before you serve, to avoid the colour bleed from the shells.

See more of my desserts here!