Low calorie cheesecake recipe

[Frances Marie]

Does anyone have a low calorie, low sugar cheesecake recipe that actually tastes good? Would be most appreciated.

[TdeV]

Hello Frances Marie. My best friend in elementary school (12 years old) was named Marie France! Many great people here. Welcome to eGullet.

[jimb0]

In my experience it’s very difficult to get something like a cheesecake to be both low in calories and low in sugar and still taste good, at least currently. It’s generally an either/or situation. 

 

With that said if you’re mostly after that tangy cream cheese flavour you could beat together some cream cheese with sweetener. I recommend a blend of polydextrose and erythritol for bulk, then sweeten to taste with sucralose drops. The polydextrose replaces something like powdered sugar, though you don’t need to add as much as if you were making frosting. Say a half cup of each for one block of cream cheese.  You can add more polydextrose if you want to whip it airier (polydextrose itself isn’t sweet; it’s a low calorie fibre that acts like sugar does in other respects). Add a spoon of vanilla, and a pinch of salt to taste. It’ll be a little soft but firm up nicely in the fridge. 

 

You can eat it with a spoon or dip things into it, or make little quenelles to top other stuff. 

Edited January 27, 2021 by jimb0 (log)

[chileheadmike]

I only tried once. It was a complete disaster.

 

My wife requested a cheesecake made from the fake sugar in the yellow box. Splenda? 

The recipe called for a lot of it. It looked beautiful coming out of the oven. Nicely risen, slightly browned top. Looked like a really nice cheesecake.

No one took more than one bite. It was so bitter, I'm not sure anyone swallowed their first bite. 

 

Shivers.

[RWood]

I've never attempted a low calorie cheesecake.

But, I would try some of the new powdered low calorie ones out there. Swerve and Besti make powdered sugar that doesn't taste terrible. The powdered would probably blend better. It might work, along with the lower fat cream cheese. Check the sugar substitutes website that you use, they might have some ideas that would help.

[heidih]

17 hours ago, Frances Marie said:

Does anyone have a low calorie, low sugar cheesecake recipe that actually tastes good? Would be most appreciated.

Are you looking for a baked cheesecake or a creamy refrigerated one? What kind of crust? The sugar substitutes have gotten better/less bitter over time .Is she o.k. with any of them?

[pastrygirl]

I'd look for a recipe using some proportion of low fat ricotta and cut the sugar.  Cheesecake doesn't need to be too sweet, let the cheese be the star.

[scott123]

+1 for polydextrose and erythritol, although I highly recommend making a syrup with them first, or the erythritol won't dissolve and, beyond not providing any sweetening, it will give you a super odd, somewhat minty cooling effect. 8:1:1 polydextrose:erythritol:water (by weight) will give you something pourable at just below egg-cooking temps (140Fish). It will be super thick and unwieldy when refrigerated, and after a few days, the erythritol will crystallize and turn it cloudy, but, as long as you nuke it a bit before you work with it, it will be manageable. Whatever liquids you add to it (in this instance, eggs), whisk one into the other while drizzling it.  Not only will this syrup keep the erythritol dissolved, it will prevent the polydextrose from clumping, which can also be problematic (polyd is super clumpy/hygroscopic).

Be aware, both polydextrose and erythritol can cause gastric distress- not nearly as bad as maltitol, but, you want to keep this in mind when considering the audience you're serving it to. Ideally, you'll want to serve this to someone who can build up a tolerance to the polydextrose by consuming a little bit each day.  FWIW, polydextrose is a prebiotic, and is supposedly quite healthy.

Allulose is the new kid on the sweetening block and is both very low calorie (1/10th sugar) and seems to act extremely sugar-ishly.  Unfortunately, studies have shown it to enlarge rat kidney and livers. When I was hitting allulose the hardest, before I was even aware of the studies, I was experiencing some kidney discomfort.  I do feel like dose makes a difference, though, and when it comes to sweeteners, the greater the variety, the better the quality of sweetening.

As mentioned, sucralose is a good candidate to fill in the missing sweetness, but, I highly recommend adding at least one more high intensity sweetener to the mix. Like I said, the more the merrier.  In small amounts I'm a fan of monkfruit extract. Make sure it's the pure extract and not the erythritol/monkfruit blend.

[jimb0]

i was very excited to get my hands in allulose and unfortunately i found it to have some of the worst side effects (for me personally) of all the sucrose substitutes. alas!

[scott123]

1 hour ago, jimb0 said:

i was very excited to get my hands in allulose and unfortunately i found it to have some of the worst side effects (for me personally) of all the sucrose substitutes. alas!

 

So GI issues? That's interesting.  Was this in any quantity?

On paper, erythritol, like allulose, is suppose to largely bypass the intestines and cause no distress, but, I've known the occasional person who can't tolerate it.  Not many, but, one or two.

[jimb0]

11 hours ago, scott123 said:

 

So GI issues? That's interesting.  Was this in any quantity?

On paper, erythritol, like allulose, is suppose to largely bypass the intestines and cause no distress, but, I've known the occasional person who can't tolerate it.  Not many, but, one or two.

 

yeah. and we're talking quantities of like, a bowl of ice cream in which it's the only sweetener (about half a cup of allulose in a bit more than a litre of ice cream, so it wasn't exactly a huge amount). definitely turned me off of the stuff. which, again. frustrating.

 

it does interfere with carb absorption in the gi tract, so i suppose it's possible that it's related to that. i obviously wouldn't have been eating it with high sugar or starch, say, but there may have been something else.

 

most of the time i stick to erythritol and sucralose, which i tolerate well and don't mind the flavours of. xylitol for gum and occasionally food. sometimes monkfruit. polyD when i really need the bulk and/or hygroscopicity of a sugar-like. inulin affects me more than polyD, interestingly, so i avoid it when possible. isomalt is okay in sparing amounts.

 

to bring it back on topic, i posted a cake i made for the SO the other day that used polyD, erythritol, and sucralose, with reduced pear purée instead of butter or oil. i am honestly astonished at how moist it was / stayed. polyD is kind of incredible in that regard, i think.

 

i did the cream cheese whip i was talking about to serve alongside, and with a little vanilla, that stuff is really easy to just eat on a spoon (or finger) straight out of the fridge....

[jimb0]

whoops, quote is not edit.

 

regardless on allulose: i still totally recommend others try it who are looking for a sugar alternative, because it works so well.

Edited January 29, 2021 by jimb0 (log)

[scott123]

18 hours ago, jimb0 said:

regardless on allulose: i still totally recommend others try it who are looking for a sugar alternative, because it works so well.

Your intestines, my kidneys  I'm in the exact same camp.  It works too damn well not to play around with- in moderation and in combination with other things, of course.  In this instance, the solution to pollution might be dilution.