In a quest to come up with a low carb, sugar free, gluten free cake with which to celebrate my birthday, the word Cheesecake was at the top of the list. The challenge then was to find a recipe. Here’s the current one, although I am keen to improve the base taste.
This cheesecake is very sweet, I may experiment with less sweetener.
3 250g tubs of Philadelphia cream cheese (original)
4 eggs
1/2 Tablespoon) vanilla
1/2 Tablespoon) lemon juice
1 can of Natvia Natural Sweetener.
1/4 cup sour cream
Crust:
1 cup almond meal
2 Tablespoon butter
2 Tablespoons of the Nativa Natural Sweetener
Making the cheesecake will be much easier if your ingredients are at room temperature, so take the cold ingredients out of the fridge about an hour before you start making the cheesecake,
Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. I use a fan forced oven, you might want to go a little hotter if yours isn’t. Also, if your oven has an exposed element on the bottom, it’s a good idea to put a backing tray on the bottom rack to shield the cake tin from the direct heat of the element, you want it to bake with the hot air only. Also, these tend to have a little bit of dripage, so the lower tray will save your oven.
Melt the butter, and combine it with the almond meal and the two tablespoons of sweetener. Take the two tablespoons out of the can, the idea is you use one can per cheesecake making getting the ingredients nice and easy.
Line the bottom of a springform cake tin with some baking paper, this will make it much easier to get the cake off the base of the tin when it’s done. I cut out a circle of baking paper to match the bottom of the tin.
Put the base mixture into the tin and pack down evenly and firmly, the baking paper will slide around so be careful as you spread it out. Once you get it spread, find something to press down on it so you get it nice and packed.
Whack that in the oven for about 8 minutes, it should just start to brown, then take it out.
Now make the filling. Start with the cream cheese, whisking it until it’s fluffy. Then add the eggs, keep whisking and add each of the other ingredients. You will use the rest of the tin of Nativa here. The trick here is to ensure the mixture is completely mixed, so you will need to stop every so often and scrape down the sides of the bowl. I use a nice stainless steel bowl which is a good shape for this kind of work, but even so, some of the sweetener tends to collect on the bowl, so scrape down early and often.
Once the mixture is all good, pour gently into the tin over the pre baked base. It should settle pretty evenly by itself as the mixture at this point is quite viscous. Put it in the oven, and after 10 minutes turn the oven down to 100 degrees.
The cheesecake will take about 90 minutes to cook, but keep an eye in it as ovens vary. After 90 minutes it will wobble because it’s hot. Take it out of the oven and let it cool in the tin for 30 minutes before putting the whole thing in the fridge to set properly.
Once it’s nice and cold, you will need to run a thin knife around the edge before opening the springform tin. I then get some baking paper and carefully flip the cake upside down and pry the base of the cake tin off the cake with a butter knife before putting the cake on a plate.
Enjoy!