One of the true delights of low carb cooking (if you are not lactose intolerant or following some other non-dairy plan) has got to be cream cheese. While I was never one to eat cream cheese and bagels (too bland for me—I like sweet!), I have grown to love cream cheese in many other ways (sweet and savory) in my low carb and healthy cooking and baking.
As a matter of fact, I have loved it so much that I developed the Cream Cheese Dessert Base that uses cream cheese as the foundation for many desserts. I found that if I make this mix and have it in my refrigerator (or freezer) at all times, I am less prone to wander from my healthful eating path.
Don’t forget to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page for this recipe’s helpful Recipe Keys!
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- 1 “part” Cream Cheese Dessert Base (2 ¼ to 2 ½ cups)...see “one part” recipe below or make entire dessert base to have for other treats
- 2 cups whipping cream, whipped*
- 1 can sugar-free cherry pie filling (not just low sugar) or 2 ½ to 3 cups fruit
- 1 cup crumbled Brown Sugar Cookies or Peanut Butter Criss Cross Cookies or Sugar-Free Starbucks Chocolate Cookie Copycat** (both cookies will be available in Healthy MIxes: Sugar-Free, Flour-Free and eventually at the blog)
- 1 cup crushed nuts (I use pecans)***
- ½ cup butter (1 stick) at room temperature
- ***May use two cups cookie crumbles and no nuts if desired. I do it both ways. I like the crunchiness of the nuts, but for my kids, I only use the cookie crumbles.
- Heat oven to 350’.
- Crumble the brown sugar cookies** (or use other crust mixture that you enjoy—see suggestions in the Recipe Keys section) into a bowl. Combine cookie crumbles with crushed nuts. Stir in the melted butter. (Cookies will be in upcoming blog posts and Healthy Mixes: Low Carb and Sprouted Flour Mixes books.)
- Press cookie mixture tightly into the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking dish.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes convection and 20 to 22 minutes regular (uncovered).
- Remove crust from oven and allow to cool fully.
- With rubber spatula or wooden spoon, mix whipped cream into the dessert base until fully incorporated. If mixture feels too runny for a typical cherry delight, you may desire to add more powdered sweetener in ⅛ cup increments. (This might happen if you used fat free cream cheese for your base.)
- Once crust is cooled, carefully spread creamy mixture over it. Refrigerate for a few minutes while preparing fruit.
- If using sugar free pie filling, dollop over the creamy mixture and spread across pan. Refrigerate immediately.
- If using real fruit, use potato masher to smash the berries while sprinkling bulk granulated sweetener over them to your desired sweetness. Dollop over the creamy mixture and spread across pan. Refrigerate immediately.
- *Whipping Cream Note: Follow instructions on making whipped cream with dairy whipping cream at the blog. Generally speaking, whipping cream will double in volume when beaten into “whipped cream.”
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(Have you, like me, found that the real secret to eating for health and weight management is to have healthy substitutions for things you used to eat that were not so healthy?)
The Cream Cheese Dessert Base is an amazing way to wean yourself away from sugar and on to real, healthy, sugar-free desserts and treats. And this Cherry Delight recipe is a great one to start with as it tastes the most similar to “the real deal” as any low carb/healthy dessert I have ever had.
Recipe for One Part Cream Cheese Dessert Base
1 1/2 bars of cream cheese
1 cup powdered Pyure <–affiliate link! (2 cups of cup-for-cup sugar substitute)
1/2 TBSP vanilla
Optional: 1 TBSP milk or cream
Beat all together thoroughly with whisk attachment.
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Recipe Keys
Very Low Carb (VLC): This dessert can be pretty low carb if made with full fat cream cheese, no carb sweetener, and real whipping cream. The number of carbs per serving will be dependent upon the fruit you use and the crust you create. I have made this “whip” without the crust (see “Cream Cheese Whip”/”Berry Dip” later) and then dipped out of it at the time of serving—sprinkling on some chopped strawberries and pecans. Amazing!
Family-Friendly (FF): This is one dish that I can make when all of our kids are coming home—and it will be eaten just as well as the sugar-laden desserts that others bring. People really love this dessert—it is a comfort food that makes people feel like they are eating the “real thing.”
Store-Bought-Stella (SBS): The use of Cool Whip as one of the options makes this appealing to SBS’s but less healthy than real whipping cream, of course. The same is true with the use of sugar-free pie filling. The crust mix is fairly time consuming, but you can also use nuts in the bottom of your pan instead of an actual crust, or you can use one of the other ideas above in the Brown Sugar Cookies note. This can be a SBS’s delight for sure!
Homemade Hannah (HH): Mixing your own whipping cream in this makes it appealing to Homemade Hannah’s. Experimenting with various crusts will keep HH’s busy for some time—and ensure that every aspect of your dessert is as homemade and healthy as you wish.
Freezer Cooking (FC): I never freeze this entire dessert. I do, however, freeze the base at times. I also ALWAYS freeze brown sugar cookies (and/or brown sugar cookie dough). I like having the cookies frozen to use for single-serving desserts or to crumble over any of my “whipped” desserts. (See “Fruit Pizza” recipe for more on that.)
Trim Healthy Mama-Friendly (THM) (www.trimhealthymama.com): This is very obviously an S dessert (using berries, not canned pie filling). Making it into an E would be a definite stretch—if you have a low fat THM cookie recipe, use fat free cream cheese for the base, and don’t use whipped cream, you could possibly come up with an E version of this dessert. How about an E Apple Delight—a low fat crust (or crisped tortilla shell), the low fat filling–topped with cooked apples (cooled) that you sweeten—caramel apple no bake cheesecake. You would definitely have to be creative to come up with an E dessert with this, but it can be done! (Sugar-free pie filling as given in the ingredients link at the blog is off-plan for THM since it contains sucralose, which is not a natural sweetener. Crushing berries with a potato masher and sweetening with granulated natural sweetener will result in a “good enough” topping for this dish {without the use of corn starch or other thickener and/or heating the “syrup”}. )
Sugar Free (SF): Yes. This assumes that the crust of your choice is sugar free—and that the fruit is not sweetened with sugar per the recipe given.
