Christine and I headed to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia for the Thanksgiving holiday on Saturday and have been staying with my sister-in-law and my beautiful little niece this week. It’s been so much fun cooking meals for them…high-fat, grain-free, low-carb ones of course! From fresh bacon and eggs for breakfast to gourmet chicken and pork chop dinner dishes with salad greens, I just love whipping up recipes that taste delicious and are a whole lot healthier to consume than anything else people are eating.
Unfortunately, too much fat-phobia and “healthy whole grains” mentality has crept into the thinking of most people nowadays that they just can’t wrap their heads around why real foods like animal fats, butter, coconut oil, and cream are deemed good for you. And the truth is, they REALLY are! I’m working on educating people on why they should be eating more fat and less grains and sugar–but it’s an uphill battle. Isn’t it ironic that unncessarily restricting the consumption of healthy fat in your diet as a means to an end in optimizing your health is actually counterproductive to the goal of eating that way? It’s why I’ll never stop sharing about high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb living to as many people who will listen!
When I was out shopping for food the other day I found some 86% Ghirardelli dark chocolate. I’d never tried it before because I usually opt for the 100% dark chocolate and sweeten it to my own taste with stevia or some other sweetener. My intrigue about this 86% which only had a few carbs per square got me to purchase the chocolate and try it when I got home. It’s advertised on the front of the packaging and “intense chocolate” and they weren’t kidding! But this stuff was utterly AMAZING! There’s no bitterness and it contains a really deep, rich dark chocolate. It was so good I had Christine try some and she was hooked too. I hate coffee notes in dark chocolate and this one didn’t have any. WOO HOO!
As the chocolate was melting in my mouth, I got an idea–why not use this in a low-carb dessert somehow? The inspiration bug bit me and I started brainstorming ideas about what I could do. When I looked in the refrigerator and saw some strawberries and heavy whipping cream, a light bulb went off in my head. Why not make a strawberries and cream cheesecake and drizzle it with the dark chocolate on top? EUREKA! I had some cream cheese and all the ingredients to make a fantastic low-carb dessert and an idea was borne. Here’s the resulting recipe that I think turned out pretty well:
LOW-CARB STRAWBERRIES & CREAM CHEESECAKE WITH DARK CHOCOLATE DRIZZLE
9 oz raw almonds or almond flour
4 large eggs
10-12 strawberries
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
Honey/stevia or favorite sweetener to taste
16 oz Philadelphia cream cheese (at room temperature)
Butter or coconut oil
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
If you don’t have access to almond flour, simply put the raw almonds in your blender and pulsate until it turns into a powder. Turn it on high for the last few seconds to throughly break up any big pieces of almond. Empty contents into a mixing bowl. Add eggs and start mixing together.
Place the strawberries and cream into your blender along with your favorite sweetener and honey if you can tolerate the carb counts. The key here is to find a mix of sweetener that works for your taste buds. 2 Tbs honey and some liquid stevia works well for me.
Blend on high until it looks like a strawberry milkshake (it will be bright pink and thick). Pour into the almond flour/egg mixture and mix thoroughly. Add the softened cream cheese (if you pull it straight from the refrigerator, then you’ll have big chunks of cream cheese in your cheesecake–EWW!) and stir with a fork like a madman until your cheesecake batter is moderately thick. You don’t want it too runny or too thick. We’re looking for Goldilocks here–JUST RIGHT!
Grease a 9X13 glass baking dish heavily so that the cheesecake will not stick and pour the batter into the dish. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Use a toothpick in the center of the cheesecake to see if it comes out dry. If not, cook for an additional 5 minutes.
Dark Chocolate Drizzle
4 squares (50g) of 86% Ghirardelli dark chocolate or your favorite
3 Tbs heavy whipping cream
Honey/stevia or favorite sweetener to taste
Put a saucepan on low heat (I put it on 2-3 on my stove) and pour the heavy whipping cream in which should cover the bottom of the pan. Add your favorite dark chocolate (I LOVE this 86% because it’s not too bitter, gives a strong chocolate flavor without any coffee notes and has very minimal carb counts) and sweetener (again, I used a honey/stevia combination that tastes good to me–but you won’t need much at all).
Allow to heat up for a few minutes and then stir constantly to prevent the chocolate from scalding. As the chocolate melts it will turn into a nice chocolately delight. When the chocolate melts completely, turn the heat off and allow to cool to thicken up a bit. This will become the “drizzle” for the cheesecake.
After the cheesecake is finished cooking, take a tablespoon and evenly distribute the chocolate all across the top of the cheesecake. When you are finished, it should look a little something like this:
Looking yummy now! Place in freezer for an hour to cool and then cut into squares. Makes 20 squares. Add fresh strawberries as a garnish and ENJOY!
