Monday, August 18, 2008

Individual Cheesecakes (Low Fat and Low Calorie)

I wanted to try to make cheesecake using xylitol in place of sugar after Anna at Cookie Madness made this low fat and low calorie cheesecake.  I'm really excited about xylitol and that it is an all natural sugar.  I really cannot taste the difference in the things I've made with it so far (unlike Splenda and other sweeteners, which have a strange aftertaste).  I didn't want to make an entire cheesecake with the xylitol, in case for some reason it didn't work out, so I cut the recipe Anna posted in half and made individual ones using cupcake liners in muffin tins.  These turned out cute and fun and most importantly--yummy!

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You can get the full recipe from the link on Cookie Madness if you want to make a really good cheesecake (noting that nothing beats a full fat delicious cheesecake), but save yourself some fat and calories.  Here is the recipe as I made it for the individual ones.  I actually changed quite a few things from the one Anna made.  I made these and we had company over just hours later and they were pretty good, but they were even better the next day, as most cheesecakes are after they have time for all the flavor to develop.  One thing I did to note was make the full recipe amount of graham cracker crust but halved the cheesecake.  It came out perfect to make 20 individual cups each holding one tablespoon or so of crust and 2 good sized tablespoons of filling.

Individual Cheesecake Cups (Low Fat and Low Calorie)

Crust:

12 rectangles of graham crackers

4 tablespoons melted butter (I should have used Smart Balance!)

Filling:

1/2 cup fat free cottage cheese

4 1/4 oz. fat free cream cheese

4 1/4 oz. reduced fat cream cheese

1/2 cup xylitol (can be substituted for sugar or sugar substitute)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract

1 tablespoon all purpose flour

1 tablespoon cornstrach

1/2 cup Egg Beaters w/touch of yolk

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons light sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line 20 muffins cups with paper cupcake liners.  Set aside.

Process graham crackers in food processor until fine crumbs.  Add melted butter and pulse until mixed.  Press one heaping tablespoon mix into each cupcake liner with back of tablespoon coming up the sides a little.  Set aside.

In cleaned bowl of food processor, process cottage cheese until very smooth.  Add both cream cheeses and xylitol.  Process until smooth.  Scrape sides of processor.  Add extracts and pulse together.  Add Egg Beaters and process until well mixed then add flour and cornstarch again processing until smooth and well mixed.  Scrape sides of bowl again.  Finally, add sour cream and blend all until fully incorporated. 

Add two heaping tablespoons of filling to each graham cracker cup.  Bake for 12-15 minutes, checking after 12 for doneness.  The center of each should be set.   Best when chilled overnight, but still good after a few hours in the refrigerator.  Serve with fresh berries on top. 

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Update:  Here's the nutrition stats for these:  1 cheesecake cup has 130 calories, 19.5 carbs, 5 grams fat, 3.5 grams protein

3 comments:

Pamela said...

Oh my...I feel a need for cheese cake coming on.

Chou said...

Hooray! I'm not the only xylitol lover out there. I've had great success substituting it in at 50% xylitol/ 50% sugar. So good. Now just to find it with a smaller pricetag.

Judy said...

Katrina - these look really yummy. I am glad that Xylitol works for you. I am sensitive to alcohol sugars and can't use it. I try to cut sugar by using Stevia for part of the sugar. By only subbing for part of the sugar, the "aftertaste" is reduced substantially.