After reading
a tirade
some comments on my
Facebook regarding the sweetener I used in this
cheesecake, I feel the need to preface this post by telling you I
occasionally use artificial sweeteners with no guilt and no
perceivable adverse effects (no headaches, no weight gain, no second
head growing from my shoulder). I have lost weight while occasionally
eating something sweetened with Sucralose (Splenda). It doesn't
affect my blood glucose at all (especially compared to
sugar),
and that's a great thing to me when I want something sweet, or I am
baking for myself and my family for a special occasion. I personally
despise the aftertaste of Stevia, and I have gastrointestinal issues
if I ingest Erythritol, honey effects me like table sugar, but for
ME Sucralose is benign.
If you are sensitive to artificial sweeteners, or if you have issues
with Sucralose, don't use it! And you find another sweetener works
better for you (even sugar), use it! If you find even the thought of
sugar or sweeteners or photos of sweet treats spike your blood sugar
and make you gain ten pounds, turn back! If you feel the need to
lecture me and everyone else on the use of sweeteners I suggest you
do it on your own Facebook or start your own blog. Making blanket
statements about *anything* is not wise, nor is it intellectually
honest, regardless of where or whom you heard it from that sweeteners
are the devil. As with anything about low carb eating, YMMV (Your Mileage
May Vary). But for those of you who, like myself, can tolerate some
sugar substitutes and low carb sweet treats every now and then, have
I got something special for you...
 |
| The one piece I hid so I could have it for lunch at work yesterday. Yum! |
I LOVE cheesecake! I had a recipe I had
been using for a while, but after making it the last few times I
decided I could probably find a better low carb recipe, or I could
convert a good cheesecake recipe to low carb myself. After scouring
the Internets and coming up empty on what I thought would be a good
low carb recipe for cheesecake, I stumbled upon a full sugar version
that sounded wonderful:
Perfect
Cheesecake on Simply Recipes.
I used this recipe to make a
cheesecake for the holidays, substituting bulk Sucralose for the
sugar and my own almond flour crust for the graham cracker crust. It
got rave reviews from family and friends. It IS a perfect cheesecake,
so creamy, rich and delicious! Its high fat content fits in nicely
with my low carb, ketogenic way of living, too!
If you've ever been intimidated by the
prospect of making your own cheesecake from scratch, fear not. As long as you follow the directions it's
really pretty easy, and no more time consuming than anything else
from scratch. You can do it! I know you can! And the payoff is
delicious.
My pointers after having made this are
these:
1. After reading a comment in the
recipe post someone mentioned using a crock pot liner instead of
foil to keep the water out of the springform pan. I happened to have
some, so I tried it and it worked like a charm!
2. I made the sour cream icing from
the recipe (with Sucralose instead of powdered sugar) and didn't
like it. I ended up scraping it off the piece(s) I had, as did all
but one other person who had some. I intend to leave it off entirely
the next time I make this.
3. I didn't have a pan big enough to
do a water bath, so I picked up an aluminum roast pan at the
grocery. That also worked great!
4. I do have a Kitchenaid stand
mixer, but opted not to drag it out of the pantry and used a hand
mixer instead. It worked just fine.
My crust recipe is as follows:
Ingredients
1 ½ C blanched almond flour
4 T butter, melted
4 t Sucralose (or other preferred
sweetener)
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375° F.
2. Combine almond flour and sweetener.
3. Mix in melted butter and press into bottom of springform pan.
4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until lightly golden brown.
Proceed with the recipe for the cheesecake batter from the
linked site, substituting the sweetener of your choice for sugar.
Enjoy!
