A. Mini cheesecakes! How can you go wrong here — they're great finger food for a party and a dessert with guaranteed petite portions. I came across a recipe for mini Black Forest cheesecakes after I got this e-mail from a reader so I spoke not a word but went straight to my work.

The original recipe calls for vanilla wafers as the bottom crust. I like that idea, but I used reduced fat vanilla wafers to trim the fat and trans fats as much as possible.

The filling calls for cream cheese, and I used light cream cheese. You could bring this down one more notch by using one block of fat-free cream cheese and one block of light.

With the changes to the recipe, we shaved off 50 calories and over 8 grams of fat per mini cheesecake!

Original recipe contains 198 calories, 12 grams of fat, 7 grams saturated fat and 58 milligrams of cholesterol per mini cheesecake.

Makes 24 mini cheesecakes.

Black Forest Mini Cheesecakes

• 24 reduced-fat vanilla wafer cookies
• 2 (8 ounce) packages light cream cheese
• 1 1/4 cups, plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup egg substitute
• 2 cups (16 ounces) fat-free or light sour cream, divided
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• half of a (21 ounce) can cherry pie filling, chilled

Heat oven to 325 F. Line muffin cups (2 1/2 inches in diameter) with foil bake cups. Place one vanilla wafer (flat side down) in bottom of each cup.

Beat light cream cheese in large bowl until smooth. Add 1 1/4 cups sugar, cocoa and flour; blend well. Add eggs and egg substitute; beating well after each addition. Stir in 1 cup of sour cream and almond extract. Fill each muffin cup almost full with batter.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until set. Remove from oven; cool 5 to 10 minutes. While the mini cheesecakes are baking, you can make the sour cream topping by stirring together 1 cup sour cream, 2 tablespoons sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract in a small bowl until sugar is dissolved.

Spread a heaping teaspoon of the sour cream topping on each mini cheesecake. Cool completely in pan on wire rack; refrigerate. Just before serving, garnish with a cherry or two from the cherry pie filling. Cover; refrigerate leftover cheesecakes.

• Per mini cheesecake: 148 calories, 4 grams protein, 24 grams carbohydrate, 3.7 grams fat (2.3 grams saturated fat, 0.3 grams monounsaturated fat, 0.1 grams polyunsaturated fat), 26 milligrams cholesterol, 0.4 grams fiber, 126 milligrams sodium

Calories from fat: 22 percent

Omega-3 fatty acids: 0 grams

Omega-6 fatty acids: 0.06 grams

Weight Watchers points: 3 points