Last week we celebrated Father's Day and Jason's Birthday. One of his favorite desserts is cheesecake. I can eat some good cheesecake, also, but for him, it is the best dessert ever! Most cheesecake recipes have a lot of fat and sugar in them, so they don't fit into the ideal of what Jason needs to eat, but because there are two special days so close together, I wanted to make him something special. I wondered if there is some way to up the protein content of cheesecake. I found it!! I was so thrilled! Instead of using cream cheese, this cheesecake uses plain greek yogurt. It calls for sugar, but I substituted sucanat. Sucanat is unrefined crystallized cane juice. It doesn't bother Jason's blood-sugar levels like regular white or even brown sugars do.
I used this recipe from A Baking Girl. (I will include it below with the nutritional information) I think I may have whipped it too long in the food processor so it had a texture more like a custard than creamy cheese cake, but the flavor was amazing! It wasn't tart or too "greek" tasting. I want to try it again and see if I can make it creamier.
For on top, we had some fresh strawberries we purchased a couple weeks ago. Strawberries go out of season here just about 2 weeks before Jason's birthday, so I froze some. I simply washed them, sliced them and put them in freezer bags in the freezer. The day before, I took them out of the freezer and set them in the fridge to thaw. They created their own juice and were tender and sweet tasting on top of our cheesecake! Mmmm.... So very good! And no sugar added! Woo hoo!
Un-Cheesecake Recipe
(Thanks to A Baking Girl! Slightly adapted for our needs.)
**Please note that this is the exact recipe as found at A Baking Girl. I have made notes in italics that have helped me and I thought might help others. The changes I made to the recipe have been noted in italics**
2 cups fat free plain Greek yogurt1/2 cup sugar (I used sucanat instead....1:1 ratio)
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla bean (seeds scraped out)
pinch of salt
1 T cornstarch
optional: sliced strawberries for garnish (I used frozen)
Preheat oven to 350F. In a blender or food processor, combine the eggs, sugar, yogurt and vanilla. Blend until smooth, then add cornstarch and pinch of salt and blend again. Pour filling into a 10 inch springform pan, and bake for 35 minutes. (I used a pie plate with some non-stick aluminum foil shaped to the pan. It worked just fine. I chose not to include a crust, though I am working on finding another crust that would work.)
When the cheesecake is done, it will still be jiggly in the center but will have a “done” look to it. The edges of the cake will start to pull away from the sides of the pan. Make sure you don’t overbake. It will continue to set up as it cools.
Let cool then chill for 2-3 hours in the fridge before releasing springform. (At this point, I turned the pie plate over and let the aluminum foil and cheesecake fall gently onto a plate. I then gently removed the foil. It stuck a few places, but generally came out beautifully!)
Arrange the sliced strawberries over top of the cooled cheesecake and serve. It will easily serve 8-10 people. This is a rather thin cheesecake at only about 1/2", but it is delicious and I didn't miss the extra thickness.
ENJOY!! :-)
Nutritional Info
- Servings Per Recipe: 8
- Amount Per Serving
- Calories: 95.3
- Total Fat: 1.2 g
- Cholesterol: 46.5 mg
- Sodium: 44.2 mg
- Total Carbs: 11.8 g
- Dietary Fiber: 0.0 g
- Protein: 7.3 g
