Tag Archives: chocolate

Desserts, Recipes

Layered Chocolate Vanilla Cheesecake

For Valentine’s Day, I wanted to put out something a little special and heart-shaped that is delicious.  I ran across a recipe for Marbled Cheesecake Hearts in an old Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk recipe booklet and thought about how I would adapt it to a low carb recipe.  Right off, the sweetened milk is a problem, but one you can work around.  LC Foods offers a substitute version mix and although I’ve got one on hand, I haven’t tried it yet. But I wanted to try making this just using extra sugar substitute and heavy cream instead.

I followed the original recipe instructions (see them here), but cut them in half to make a smaller cake.  It came out more like a layer of chocolate and vanilla than a marble swirl. I concluded a few things while doing this:

  1. The recipe says to use half the cream cheese mixture as vanilla and add the chocolate to the rest and swirl it in. It’s too much chocolate, which is why mine came out with an almost solid chocolate top. I didn’t have enough vanilla to pull through. So I’ve changed it to 1/3 mixed with the chocolate to swirl through.
  2. The top got a little dry in the oven, which gave it a flaky appearance. Adding a pan of water underneath will help to keep it moist and prevent the drying out.
  3. Using heart cookie cutters results in a quite a few small pieces of your cheesecake being left over and not so pretty.
    So I suggest making it in heart-shaped molds or cutting it into bars and putting a sugar-free candy heart on top. You can also cut a strawberry down the middle and place it face down on the top to make a strawberry heart if you can to use it for a special occasion. When you do this, you’ll have less mess, less work, and eight servings.
  4. You also don’t need to put it in the foil liner. Just put a piece of parchment paper on the bottom of your pan and spray the sides with baking spray so it will come out easily.

Layered Chocolate and Vanilla Cheesecake

1 Chocolate Shortbread batch (recipe below)
12 oz. Cream Cheese, softened
1 cup Heavy Cream
1 1/2 cup Sugar Substitute
1 Eggs
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 oz Unsweetened Chocolate, melted

Preheat oven to 300 degrees (F.) Line a 6″ x 9  1/2″ (or close to it) deep-sided baking pan with heavy foil (see note 4 above), cut a piece of parchment paper to fit the bottom, and set aside.

Make the chocolate shortbread crust as described below.

In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until it is fluffy. In a small bowl, combine the cream and sugar substitute and mix together. Beat into the cream cheese until it is smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until blended. Pour 2/3 of the batter over the crust and smooth with a rubber spatula.

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler until it is smooth. Stir the melted chocolate into the remaining batter until it is mixed in. Spoon this in six mounds over the vanilla batter in the pan. Use a table knife or spatula to gently swirl the chocolate batter through the vanilla batter so it looks marbled.  Put a pan of hot water under the rack in the oven, then put the cake above it.

Hearts cut out with a cookie cutter. They can be decorated with icing, whipped cream, or berries.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until the cake is set. Cool for about 10 minutes, then put into the refrigerator to chill for at least an hour. Lift out of the pan using the foil to slide onto a cutting board. Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut hearts. Or you can just cut into bars. Cover and store in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

This makes 6 heart-shaped cakes and the rest is pieces that you can cut into pieces and mix with whipping cream in a bowl for a not so special-looking dessert for two more servings.  (See note 3 above.)

Makes 8 servings.

Nutrition Information (Filling Only)1 serving
Calories: 428.4 Fat: 43.4 g Net Carbs: 3.4 g Protein: 7.9 g

Chocolate Shortbread Crust

3/4 cup low carb flour
1/4 cup Almond Flour
1/2 cup Butter
3/4 cup Sugar Substitute
2 tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
Pinch Salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, mix the baking mix, almond flour, whey powder, sugar substitute, and salt together. Cut the butter into the flour mixture until you have a soft dough.

Press into the bottom of your prepared baking pan.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Nutrition Information (Crust Only) 1/8 recipe
Calories:150.6 Fat: 15.1 g Net Carbs: 1.2 g Protein:2.8 g

Book News, Book Nook, Healthy Life, Mexican/Spanish Recipes, Recipes

New Cookbook, New Series Launched

coverLC15-Mexican2_96

I’m excited to launch a new series of little cookbooks that I call Low Carb 15.  Simply, it is a little cookbook with fifteen recipes covering one subject or category with delicious adapted to low carb recipes.  Since it is almost Cinco de Mayo, I launched with one of my favorite food types — Mexican Food!

I love it and have had to come up with adapted recipes to help keep me in maintenance mode.  I sure don’t want to go back up in weight and it is a struggle all the time to not fall off the low carb path and indulge in some of the great food out there. Sure, I do fall off now and then, but I always try to snap back to the low carb intake. But it’s my mission to these days to try to adapt as many recipes for favorite foods to a low carb version.

This booklet has fifteen great recipes for tried and enjoyed Mexican and Tex-Mex food.  It includes two recipes for soup, two for desserts, one for a spicy cheesy cornbread made with low carb flours, and the rest are main course items.  A few of the recipes have been posted on this blog, but there are several new, never posted ones that are exclusive to this book.

The booklet is only available on eBook.  At the moment, it is available from Smashwords (see widget above) and Amazon Kindle. It will be available on iBooks, Barnes and Noble, and Kobe soon.

So check it out and treat yourself to a copy.  If you like it, please review it. Thanks.  And happy Cinco de Mayo!

Desserts, Recipes

Low Carb Version of Hepburn’s Brownies

Recently, I saw a recipe from the New York Times that said it was Katherine Hepburn’s own for Brownies. It’s a simple recipe and I really wanted to try it, but I also needed to adapt it to low carb. It uses a lot of powdered chocolate and very little flour. I made it and it turns out well, with a rich dark chocolate flavor and a lot of nuts. I plan to make it again, but I am going to make a couple of changes so that it isn’t quite so dark chocolate-tasting as I prefer a lighter taste to my chocolate, being very fond of milk chocolate. When I do that, I’ll post the lighter version.

The best part of this recipe is that it is very low in effective carbs with only 1 net carb in each square. Without further fanfare, here is the low carb adapted recipe.

Low Carb Hepburn’s Brownies

1/2 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1 stick Butter
2 Eggs
1 cup Sugar Substitute
1/4 cup Low Carb Flour
1 cup chopped Walnuts or Pecans
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
pinch of Salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees(F.)

Use a medium-sized heavy pot. Over low heat, melt the butter until it’s almost completely melted (or put this over a double boiler to avoid burning). Stir in the unsweetened cocoa powder until completely mixed in. Remove from the heat and let cool a few minutes.

Mix the flour, sugar substitute, salt and nuts together in a bowl.

Whisk the eggs into the chocolate mixture one at a time, blending each in well. The mixture will begin to thicken. Add the vanilla and stir it in, then add the flour and nut mixture and stir it in until it is completely blended.

Pour into a buttered (or cooking spray coated) 8×8-inch baking pan. Spread the batter so that it is even, then bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Do not overbake so that the brownies are gooey inside. Let cool completely, then cut into 16 2×2-inch squares.

Nutrition Information per square:
Calories: 122.5 Fat: 12.3 g Net Carbs: 1.0 g Protein: 2.3 g

Notes:  For the low carb flour you can use CarbQuick, LC Foods Cake Flour, Soy Flour or Almond Flour.  I personally don’t like the taste of Soy Flour, so I don’t use it, but if you don’t mind it, then it will work.

Regular Katherine Hepburn Brownies

For those of you who want the full sugar version, here’s the ingredient list and the instructions are the same:

1/2 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1 stick Butter
2 Eggs
1 cup Sugar
1/4 cup Flour
1 cup chopped Walnuts or Pecans
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
pinch of Salt

Nutrition Information per square with regular sugar and flour:
Calories:170.5 Fat: 11.7 g Net Carbs: 15.2 g Protein: 2.7 g

Are you a Brownie fan?  (Isn’t everyone?)  Which do you prefer — dark chocolate or milk chocolate? Let me know in the comments and let me know how you like the recipe.

Desserts, Recipes

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cakes Are Great!

Did you know that chocolate cake can be a very low carb dessert? It really is. When you replace the sugar in it with a sugar substitute and use a low carb flour, the carbs really go down. Here’s a great little cupcake that combines a chocolate hazelnut flour cake with peanut butter cups for a delightful snack or dessert that is only 1.7 net carbs!  I used Russell Stover’s Peanut Butter Cups in this but Reese’s also makes a sugar-free peanut butter cup.  I think the carbs may be a little higher on Reese’s cups though.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cakes

1/4 cup Low Carb Flour
1 tablespoon Hazelnut Flour
1 tablespoon Vanilla Whey Powder (optional)
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 tablespoon Vegetable or Olive or Coconut Oil
1 tablespoon Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1 Egg
1 tablespoon Heavy Cream
1/4 cup Sugar Substitute
4 Russell Stover Sugar-free Peanut Butter Cups

Preheat oven to 365 degrees. Prepare four cupcake molds by spraying with baking spray with flour.

In a medium bowl, add flours, why powder and baking powder. (If you are not using whey powder, add an extra tablespoon of low carb flour.) Mix in sugar substitute and cocoa powder. Add egg, oil and cream. Mix together well.

Spoon 2 tablespoons of batter into each cupcake mold. It should bring it to about 2/3rds full. If there is a little extra batter, divide it around. Put a peanut butter cup, bottom down in the top of each of the cupcakes. It will sink in as they cook.

Bake for 12 to 16 minutes until the cake is done and a toothpick inserted at the side comes out clean. The middle of the cupcake will be the candy.

Peanut Butter Cup sinks to the middle of the cake.

Let cool a few minutes, then sprinkle with powdered sugar substitute or serve with whipped cream.

Makes 4 cupcakes.

Nutrition Info per cupcake:
Calories: 180.6 Fat: 8.7 g Net Carbs: 1.7 g Protein: 4.9 g

Regular Version using flour and sugar

To make without using sugar substitute, simply replace the 1/4 cup sugar substitute with 1/4 cup sugar and replace the sugar-free peanut butter cups with regular ones.  Replace the low carb flour with regular flour and, if you prefer, you can replace the hazelnut flour and whey powder with regular flour as well.  The rest of the recipe is the same.

Nutrition Info per cupcake with sugar and flour:
Calories: 232 Fat: 10.4 g Net Carbs: 32 g Protein: 5.5 g