Dream-Easy Cheesecake
3.8 grams carbohydrates per serving
Ingredients:
4 oz cream cheese
3/8 cup ricotta cheese (whole milk preferred)
1/8 t salt
1 egg
4.5 t Splenda granules
2 T water
1.5 t Almond extract (you can also make different flavored cheesecakes by using vanilla, maple, cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice)
1 T heavy cream to make Splenda sweetened French Vanilla Whipped cream, or use a blender)
4 little Pyrex 175 ml baking cups (available at supermarkets)
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Place all of the ingredients into a blender and blend them until smooth. Pour into Pyrex dishes and bake until firm but still moist (17 to 23 minutes depending on your oven). I like it really soft and moist- almost like a custard, so I pull them out at 17 minutes, while at 23, they are a lovely toasty-brown on the top, more firm and a bit drier. Remove from oven and let cool. Refrigerate immediately. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream and any of the toppings listed below.
Tips and variations on this simple, rich dessert. Sometimes I crumble 6 pecan halves and sprinkle them on the top of each little cheesecake before baking. It adds a negligible amount of carbs to these luscious deserts, and a little crunch. Your extract will bake out a lot, so experiment with that to get as much flavor as you like. You can use any of the wonderful Da Vinci flavored syrups to pour over the top. It gives you a myriad of choices for cheesecake flavors! One of my favorites is the caramel. Dreamy! Also, you can take 4 frozen cherries or strawberries and chop them into small pieces, and sprinkle them over the top of the whipped cream, or drop 6 blueberries on each. This will add approximately .4 g carbohydrates to your desserts along with a lot of color and flavor.
Prepared chocolate pie crust
2 12 oz boxes of extra firm silken tofu
10 oz chocolate
2 Tablespoons flavoring
Crumble the tofu into the blender and blend until creamy and smooth. Melt 10 oz. of chocolate; stir well then add to blender. Blend until well mixed. Add the flavoring, blend one more time and pour into the crust. Fridge for at least 3 to 4 hours, then pig out!
Notes on ingredients:
You can always make your own pie crust by crushing chocolate cookies. The crust I used is the Keebler/Hershey's variety, which is a milk chocolate crust. Another good option is the Oreo cookie crust -- dark chocolate!!! AND ... you can also just pour the mixture into custard cups and skip the crust altogether!
On the tofu -- be sure to use "silken" tofu, and either firm or extra firm. I use Mori-Nu brand, and the boxes are somewhere close to 12 oz. It really doesn't have to be precise! Also, it makes no difference to taste or texture of the pie if you use the regular or the "lite" tofu, so might as well use the lower calorie version (I do!).
As for the chocolate -- you can use any kind of chocolate. I usually use chocolate chips -- this pie was made from Ghirardelli chips, but any brand will do. You can also just chop up bars of chocolate. I melt the chocolate in the microwave, but stove top is fine too. Hint: 10 oz. is less than a full bag of chocolate chips. Again, precision is not critical, a little more/less won't hurt. For you Vegans, you can also use carob chips instead of chocolate. The flavor is a little different, but no cows have suffered.
Flavoring. My original recipe called for maple syrup, which I didn't like. I usually use Kahlua. For this pie, I didn't use any flavoring in the "bottom half" -- i.e. I poured half the blender full of mixture into the pie crust first, then I added about 4 teaspoons full of Chambord to the mix to give it a little bit of a raspberry flavor. I've also used either orange liqueur or amaretto.
Other options: I've given this recipe to a number of friends over the years and they've experimented with it wildly. One particularly interesting option is the Reese's peanut butter cup look alike pie. After you blend the tofu smooth, remove half from the blender. Add some peanut butter to the remaining half and blend, then pour into the crust. Chill for at least 30 minutes. Melt 1/2 the amount of chocolate (5 oz) and blend into the remaining half of the tofu, then spread on top of the pie.
Posted by: w8lifter
sugar overload, lol....butt I'm sure the kids would like it
Posted by: Fade99
Hey, never said it was totally healthy but damn it's good.
sugar overload, lol....butt I'm sure the kids would like it 
