Wheat-Free Creamy Cheesecake
It is the chocolate that brought you here!
I don’t blame you! Unless you have a gluten-free bakery close to you, finding this type of cheesecake is pretty much impossible. Unfortunately, I don’t have a gluten-free bakery around, so I make all my GF treats from scratch. This one, however, can’t be labeled as gluten-free, because the chocolate and granola used in this cheesecake contain barley malt. If you can tolerate some barley malt, go for it. If you have celiac disease, please substitute the granola and dark chocolate used here with certified GF products. This is a vanilla cheesecake with a 70% dark chocolate coating, some peppermint bark chocolate, and a bit of salted caramel. Yum!
If you want to try it, here is my wheat-free version.
Cheesecake Batter Ingredients:
2 Philadelphia 1/3 Less Fat Cream Cheese 8 oz ea. (room temperature)
1 Tbsp. Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Extract
1/2 Cup Truvia
1/2 Cup Sourcream
4 Eggs
Note: If you like cheesecakes that are dense/harder/not so creamy, you can add a tablespoon of tapioca flour to the cheesecake batter. I personally prefer them softer and creamier. However, tapioca will do the trick if you prefer them the other way around.
Cheesecake Crust Ingredients:
Open Nature Granola Dark Chocolate Hazelnut (*contains barley malt syrup)
*You can use Nature's Path Organic Granola, Honey Almond, 11 Oz (Certified GF version) if you can’t tolerate barley
1 Cup Almond Flour
1 Cup Raw Rolled Oats
1 Tbsp Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Extract
1/2 Cup Smart Balance “butter” (room temperature)
Chocolate Coating Ingredients:
Ghirardelli Sea Salt Caramel Sauce Bottle, 17 oz
LINDOR 70% Dark Chocolate Truffles (Nutrition Facts list barley malt)
*I used 6 truffles, but you can use more or less based on your preference. I haven’t found certified gluten-free truffles, but I looked up some options and found that Godiva’s Dark Chocolate Truffles don’t have any gluten in their ingredients. The company does process gluten-related products in their facility, so they don’t recommend consuming these truffles if you have celiac. This is mostly due to cross-contamination. Given this, your best option is to buy a certified dark chocolate bar and mix it with a little bit of heavy cream to make the coating.
Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark Squares
*I used 4 squares.
Preparation:
For the cheesecake, use a blender. Add all your ingredients and blend until everything looks thoroughly combined. For the crust, I use a food processor. First, add the entire bag of granola. After it has turned into powder, add the rolled oats, almond flour, and vanilla. Then, start integrating the Smart Balance. It is likely that you will have to finish combining these ingredients by hand to have a perfect crust. I personally start everything in the food processor then finish combining the ingredients with my hands to make sure the “butter” is dispersed appropriately. Once it is thoroughly combined, pass it to an 8-inch pie dish. Start to flatten it until it has taken the form of your dish. For all my cheesecakes, I use a baking pan with a removable bottom. It works great. Just add the batter to the baking pan and place it in the center of your already pre-heated oven at 350°F for 50-60 mins.
You know the cheesecake is cooked when you open that oven and the entire top of your cheesecake looks set. You can do the jiggle test to make sure the center is not soupy/runny. Be gentle! Once you know your cheesecake is cooked, take it out of the oven, let it cool for a couple of hours and place it in the fridge for at least 8 hours.
Coating:
First, find yourself some Ziploc baggies. Put a pot with water in low-medium heat and place a steel mixing bowl on the water. Now, place your dark chocolate truffles in a Ziploc bag, add some water to the mixing bowl and place the sealed Ziploc bag in it. As the water warms up, the chocolates will melt. You can squeeze the bag to break the chocolates as they melt. The water should never be boiling hot! Once the chocolates are melted, make a small cut in the corner of the Ziploc bag, so you can squeeze the chocolate out of the bag and on top of the cheesecake. Disperse the chocolate with a spatula and dispose of the Ziploc bag.
For the peppermint bark chocolate, use the same method. Just make sure you have discarded the warm water in the mixing bowl and have added room temperature water to it. This helps to make sure the water is never too hot. Once the chocolate is melted, make a cut in the corner of the bag and drizzle over the dark chocolate. Lastly, add a little bit of the sea salt caramel on top of your cheesecake. Enjoy!
Note:
I prepared this cheesecake for my family. We don’t care much about the look. However, if you are making it for a group of people, I would recommend that you freeze the cheesecake, cut it when frozen, and coat each piece separately. Otherwise, if you make it like I did, your chocolate will crack as you cut your pieces, which does not look pretty.
You can even use skewers to dip the entire piece of frozen cheesecake in dark chocolate then drizzle peppermint bark chocolate and sea salt caramel on top. Doesn’t that sound amazing. IT IS JUST AN IDEA!
