Holiday season is upon us! Food and desserts will be plentiful. Mini Lower Sugar Cheesecakes although topped with candied pecans and complete with a gingersnap crust are surprisingly lower in sugar than most cheesecakes.
The theme for this month's recipe redux challenge is "Trimming the Table".
The holiday baking season is upon us. Time to pull out all the stops. Show us the healthy holiday dessert you will be sharing with family and friends this season.
This month's challenge was actually difficult for me. I am terrible at making decisions about anything, so each month I always struggle with what to make. But dessert themes can be more challenging than I expect. My family loves desserts and I have a killer sweet tooth, but I actually don't make huge varieties of desserts.
Everyone in my family bakes Christmas cookies. Sometimes we bake them on our own or together depending on our schedules. Since we all end up with way too many cookies for a normal person to eat it just makes sense to serve Christmas cookies for dessert at any holiday gathering.
I didn't want to make cookies for this challenge. I decided to take two of my favorite recipes from last Fall (White Chocolate Yogurt Cheesecakes and Pumpkin Praline Frozen Yogurt) and combined them to create another mini dessert recipe. If you follow me here or on Instagram you will see mini dessert pretty often. Since I have a sweet tooth mini desserts allow me to have just a taste.
I also took this challenge as an opportunity to experiment with stevia as a sweetener for my bariatric surgery and diabetic patients. I did use some brown sugar and maple syrup, however, the cheesecake batter is only sweetened with stevia. I love Stevia in the Raw. I've tried other stevia brands, but the In the Raw version is my go-to. I use the sweetener in my tea and in lemonade. You can find their product in most grocery stores. I don't work with In the Raw. I'm just a fan!
Get the Recipe!!
Recipe
Mini Lower Sugar Cheesecakes
Ingredients
- Cheesecake
- 8 ounces low fat Creamed Cheese softened to room temperature
- 1 cup vanilla yogurt I used Siggi Vanilla
- ¾ cup Stevia in the Raw
- 1 Tablespoon corn starch
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- Crust
- 20 Gingersnap cookies crushed (about 1 cup of crumbs)
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
- Topping
- ½ cup pecan pieces
- ½ tablespoon butter
- ½ tablespoon pure maple syrup
- ½ tablespoon brown sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Place cupcake liners into a 12 cup cupcake pan.
- In a large bowl mix together cream cheese, yogurt, stevia, vanilla, and egg.
- Place Gingersnaps into a food processor and chop until broken into crumbs.
- Combine cookie crumbs with melted butter and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar. Mix well.
- Place 1 tablespoon of cookie crumbs into the bottom of each cupcake liner.
- Press cookie crumbs down with the bottom of a ¼ cup measure cup (or use your fingers or a spoon).
- Divide the cheesecake among cupcake liners adding mixture on top of cookie crumbs.
- Place mini cheesecakes into the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes until set.
- When cheesecakes are finished baking remove from the oven and let cool.
- Place cheesecakes into the refrigerator and chill for at least 1 hour.
- To prepare topping place pecan into a small saucepan and cook over medium-high heat. for 2-3 minutes.
- Add to pecans butter, maple syrup, and brown sugar.
- Mix ingredients together until butter has melted and pecans are sell coated.
- Pour pecans out onto a baking mat or parchment paper.
- Let pecan cool before adding them to the cheesecakes.
Autumn @ AutumnPTW.com says
These look yummy! Love this redux. Hard to resist when they are bite size and low sugar!
Jennifer Lynn-Pullman says
Thank you Autumn.