Recipe Wednesday

Time for a dessert! I have to apologize, I can't remember where I found the original recipe online. This is my adaptation of a delicious high protein chocolate peanut butter cheesecake. The cheesecake is surprisingly healthy. Not an everyday dessert, but a nice treat. It's made from only 4 ingredients:

1/4c cottage cheese (I used fat free)

1 scoop chocolate whey protein powder (I used Designer Whey)

1T natural peanut butter

2T milk (I used fat free Calorie Countdown Dairy Beverage)

Preheat oven to 350. Blend all the ingredients together in a blender or with an immersion blender until fairly smooth. Pour into a single serve ramekin, or glass "pudding dish" that is oven-safe. Place the ramekin in a larger baking dish and add water to the larger dish so that it comes about 1/2 way up the side of the ramekin. This waterbath will help the cheesecake cook more evenly. Bake for about 35 minutes, or until the top is firm to the touch. Let cool, then place in the refrigerator for a least a few hours, over night is best.

With the ingredients I use, it comes to:

276 calories

33.5g protein

12.5g carbs

10g fat (mostly from the pb)

Now the variations on this are endless. To make it "turtle" cheesecake, I add about a teaspoon each of SF caramel and SF hot fudge, plus 1/4 oz of crushed nuts. This adds 73 calories, 1.4g protein, 2.4 carbs, and 5.9g fat.

You could use vanilla protein powder, omit the peanut butter and then top it with raspberries, strawberries, peaches, etc after it cools.

You could use vanilla protein powder, omit the peanut butter, and add 2T of blueberries to the batter after you blend it smooth.

I haven't tried this yet, but on Saturday I plan to use vanilla protein powder and add 2T canned pumpkin. (I'm on a pumpkin kick right now!)

Here's a picture of the turtle variety I had last night:

It was so good! I can't wait until Saturday to try the pumpkin cheesecake.

You can easily double or triple this recipe if you want to make more than one serving at a time. You could even sextuple or octuple it and put it in a pie crust. I haven't tried that, so I don't know what the baking time would be - but have fun with it!! Let me know if you think of any particularly yummy varieties - I love a good cheesecake!