Valentine's Day is around the corner and sweet treats will be plenty!  Instead of gifting sugar laden chocolates to your loved ones (you care about their health, don't you?), how about making them a mouthwatering dessert sans sugar?  

My friend Kate Horney over at Beyondfit Physiques shared with me this absolutely amazing gluten-free cheesecake recipe that I've posted below.  I gave this recipe a whirl over the Christmas holidays and let me just say, it was a huge hit with the entire family!  

Important: when serving recipes like this it is recommended that you leave out the part about it being gluten-free and sugar-free.  Why?  Because you can not tell that this is the healthier version!  While this recipe is excellent on its own, the most incredible part is the fact that it tastes like the real authentic cheesecake that many of us have grown to love.

I used full fat cream cheese for this recipe to help enhance the flavor and digestion.  Low fat dairy products are difficult to digest. Fear not the fat!  This is a treat and should be treated as such.

The BeyondFit Physiques team has a boat load of other delicious recipes on their blog and a superior fat loss program for moms called, Beyond Baby.  Check them out, you will not be disappointed!  Now without further adieu, the fabulous cheesecake recipe:

Vanilla Macadmia Nut Cheesecake

Ingredients:

Crust:

1 1/2 cups macadamia nuts, ground fine
1/2 cup pecans, ground fine
2 Tablespoons almond flour
3 Tablespoons organic pasture butter, melted
4 Tabelspoons stevia (e.g. NuNaturals Stevia for Baking)

Filling:

6 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, room temperature
3 organic eggs
3 vanilla beans
1 cup stevia

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  While heating, fill a cake pan halfway with hot water and place on bottom oven rack.  In a large bowl, mix together all the crust ingredients and press into bottom of a spring-form pan, set aside.  Scrape the inside of the vanilla beans out with a sharp knife.  Place scrapings on a small glass plate, set aside.

Using an electric mixer, mix the cream cheese, stevia and vanilla beans until well blended.  With the mixer on low, add the eggs to the cream cheese mixture one at a time until well blended.  Pour mixture over crust.

Place cheesecake in the middle rack of the oven, directly about the pan filled with hot water (NOTE: doing this prevents the top of the cheesecake from cracking during the baking process).  Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes depending on your oven.  The center should be set and the top lightly browned.

Allow cheesecake to completely cool (overnight is best) before removing from the spring form pan.  Once cooled, take a knife and run it around the edge of the spring form pan to help release and loosen the cheesecake.  Enjoy!  Leftovers can be stored in the refrigerator for up to a week or frozen (the later is what we did).

Thank you again Kate for this scrumptious treat!  Let us know what you think and post your comments below!  Happy Valentine's Day!

In Health,

Alison Held, M.S.
Clinical Nutritionist

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2013 at 7:48 pm and is filed under Food, ingredients, Nutrition, Recipe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.