Christmas Cheese Cake Bites: Low Calorie & Gluten Free

Aren’t you always on the look out for a healthier version of a favorite dessert. These cheesecake bites are amazingly yummy, low in calories (especially compared to the less healthier version) and to top it off they are GLUTEN free! Super easy to make and take to your Christmas party, family get together, or for work.

Hi Y’All,

Glad you stopped in today. We are so excited about these healthier cheesecake bites….hmmm….is cheesecake one or two words? If you guessed one or two – you are correct. . . it can be spelled either way. Anyway, we experimented with our recipes and we think we hit on one that is absolutely yummy, healthier and gluten free!! Grab your drink and a seat and lets get started.

Cheesecake Lover(s)

Wiebke and I both LOVE cheese cake, but I think our former video editor,

Cheesecake Lover #1

Tyler, is the biggest fan!! And loving cheesecake made this endeavor especially hard as we wanted a recipe that didn’t leave us feeling cheated.

Dictionary.com defines a Cheesecake as a cake having a firm custard like texture, made with cream cheese,cottage cheese, or both, and sometimes topped with a jam like fruit mixture. So we worked to keep the integrity of the cheesecake a cheesecake.

Cheesecake.com has some interesting facts about the origin of the cheesecake if your interested in more check out their site: The first “cheese cake” may have been created on the Greek island of Samos. Physical anthropologists excavated cheese molds there which were dated circa 2,000 B.C. Cheese and cheese products had most likely been around for thousands of years before this, but earlier than this goes into prehistory (that period in human history before the invention of writing) so we will never really know. In Greece, cheesecake was considered to be a good source of energy, and there is evidence that it was served to athletes during the first Olympic games in 776 B.C. Greek brides and grooms were also known to use cheesecake as a wedding cake. The simple ingredients of flour, wheat, honey and cheese were formed into a cake and baked – a far cry from the more complicated recipes available today!

Arriving At The Best Cheesecake Recipe

The first thing we did was compile a list of ingredients that we were willing to experiment with. We had to figure out a custard-like base, which we comprised of our homemade Greek yogurt and 1/3 less fat cream cheese. Then came the sweetener. We knew we didn’t want artificial sweeteners because we wanted a full natural flavor that would blend well with the other ingredients. We decided that honey was a sweet alternative to it’s fattening counterpart. And we kept the egg as an egg. Next came the flavoring. Vanilla is the most commonly used one in a regular high calories version and that was still a good flavor, but we soon realized that in this area we could experiment some trying out different flavors. There are soooo many out there, but for our purposes we tried lemon, extra honey, banana, mint, and chocolate. Our family’s had fun rating them for us. Everyone had a different favorite.

This left us with finding a base that would not leave us feeling cheated. The standard that we both were used to was comprised of graham cracker crumbs (wheat), butter and sugar. While experimenting we discovered that the one we chose was actually gluten free which made us smile even bigger. We chose gluten free Cheerios, honey, and coconut oil. However, for the video (above) we used extra light olive oil and suggest that you can use other light flavored oils with the same success.

Good Luck & Happy Eating!!

THHB Cheesecake Bites

Part 1: The Crust

Ingredients needed: Gluten free cereal, honey, and oil.

Mix 1 cup crushed cereal (approximately 2 cups uncrushed), 3 tbs oil, 2 tbs honey, and spoon 1 tbsp into lined cupcake pan. For the bite size we used the very small cupcake tin.

Press down with a spoon.

Bake for 10 minutes at 350F. Allow to cool completely before adding the cream cheese mixture.

Part 2: The Filling

Ingredients needed: Greek yogurt, 1/3 fat free cream cheese, egg, and vanilla

Mix together 4oz fat free cream cheese, 1 cup Greek yogurt, ¼ cup honey.

In another bowl mix 1 egg, until fluffy.

Add egg mixture to the Greek Yogurt mixture. Stir together well.

Add 1 tsp of flavoring or additive of your choice. In some instances we found out that we liked more lemon juice added. Use your imagination! Stir well.

Divide filling mixture into crust filled cupcake liners.

Place into oven heated to 350F for 25 minutes or until centers are set. I used a toothpick in the center of one to make sure it came out clean. If there is batter attached to the toothpick then turn off oven and leave in an additional 5-10 minutes depending on your oven.

Cool off completely, before placing in refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hrs before serving. I couldn’t wait and tasted one warm…not a good idea.

We got so excited and ate all our cheesecake bites before taking pictures. We’ll post when we make some for the holidays. We topped ours with a variety of items depending on what flavor we used. Some of our toppings were bananas, blueberries, canned pie filling, chocolate shavings, sprinkled cocoa, grated lime and lemon.

Note: We recommend serving the same day made as the crusts tend to hold moisture – they are better crunchy. If you do plan on making them ahead, we recommend that you remove them from their cupcake liner for a crispier crust. In the original recipe we comprised we used chopped walnuts which help add more flavor and crunch to the crust.

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