Let Them Eat Cake

On a much lighter note... Here is one of the recipes I think I'm going to submit to the Medi book. I know, I'm totally pulling a Britney Spears here, giving away a sample of my latest creative work before the finished product drops, but my bloggies and Twitter moms shouldn't have to wait.

It still needs some tweaking, (Splenda has a little bit of a weird aftertaste) but it looks like a winner. In fact, I don't think it will make it through the weekend if my boys have anything to do with it. It seems to hold up against the best cheesecake ever too - the one my mother makes every year for Thanksgiving. I put my own low carb spin on it, but failed to mention that to them just like I haven't filled them in on that whole Santa thing either... I hope, in time, they will understand.

Erin's Low Carb Cheesecake

Ingredients

Crust
-3/4 cup finely crushed almonds
-3/4 cup almond flour (sometimes referred to as almond meal)
- 2 tablespoons melted butter

Filling
- 3 eight ounce packages of fat free cream cheese, softened
- 15 ounces part skim ricotta cheese
- 1/3 cup light sour cream
- 1 1/4 cup sugar substitute
- 1/4 cup Fat Free French Vanilla Coffeemate Creamer
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon Irish Cream liquor (I recommend Baileys)
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Topping
- scant amount of sugar free strawberry topping, light whipped cream, and
strawberries


Directions
1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2) Spray springfoam pan with nonstick cooking spray.

3) Fill a roasting pan with about 1 inch of water and place in the center of the oven
rack.

4) Mix cream cheese in mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add ricotta cheese, sour
cream, and sugar substitute one at a time on low speed until blended.

5) In a separate bowl, whisk creamer, vanilla, lemon juice, Irish cream, eggs, and
cinnamon until blended.

6) Pour the egg mixture into the cream cheese mixture and mix on medium speed until
creamy.

7) Pour the filling into the springfoam pan and place pan into the water bath for 15
minutes. Turn the temperature down to 275 degrees F and bake for 1 1/2 hours or
until the top is golden brown. Turn the oven off and leave the cake in to cool for
3 hours. Remove and refrigerate until chilled. Top it off with strawberry topping,
whipped cream, and strawberries. Lift fork to mouth and enjoy!