Silk Spiced Cheesecake

So, I raved earlier this week about the Silk Soy Nog, and I planned to make the cheesecake recipe off the side of the carton. Fast forward to Wednesday... and there was no Soy Nog to be found anywhere in midtown. :(  I did, however find the last carton of Silk Pumpkin Spice drink, and that was pretty yummy when I tried it... so I decided to use the nog cheesecake recipe and modify it to just make a spiced cheesecake.

Because there's no such thing as a bad cheesecake flavor, right?

After I made it, I put all the info into livestrong.com (my go-to calorie, exercise, and weight-loss tracker), and it came out at about 268 calories. The original recipe from Silk is a bit more calories, I think, as I did make some even-healthier modifications from that recipe, which you can find online here.

Happy holidays, and merry cheesecake-making!


Silk Spiced Cheesecake

Ingredients

Graham Cracker Crust
1 cup finely crushed graham crackers
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp canola oil

Filling
12 oz 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup splenda
2 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cardamom
1/8 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup Silk Pumpkin Spice drink
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix crushed graham crackers, honey, and oil well. A food processor would have been a wonderful help here...but alas, I do not have one. So my graham cracker crust is a little chunky, because I got tired of pounding the crackers with a can of refried beans. I recommend a food processor or rolling pin (mine is in storage, boo!), if you have one. Press into bottom of 9-inch pie plate and bake in oven for about 10 minutes. Remove and let cool before filling.

Reduce oven heat to 325 degrees.  Using an electric mixer beat cream cheese, sugar, flour, salt and spices until light and fluffy, scraping sides of bowl. Beat in vanilla and Silk Pumpkin Spice drink. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Pour into prepared crust and bake for 35-50 minutes until set. A note on baking: the Silk recipe calls to bake for 25-35 minutes, but my cheesecake was nowhere near set by then. I increased baking time in increments of 10 minutes until mine was finished, totaling about 50 minutes. Basically, you'll need to watch your cheesecake carefully after the first 25 minutes, as ovens may vary greatly (from our cheap, crappy oven).

Remove from the oven and let cool, then chill in refrigerator until ready to serve. It got kind of late for me, so I went to bed and ours chilled overnight.

Divide pie into 8 slices (at only 268 calories each--compared to 300+ for any other cheesecake recipe I've found!), and serve!  Even though this used Silk's Pumpkin Spice drink, I didn't find it to have virtually any pumpkin flavor. It was just a really smooth, rich, spiced cheesecake. It certainly didn't taste "diet" or "healthy."

Some additional modifications I might try in the future: using agave instead of honey, less graham cracker crust (I don't really need it up the sides of the pan, I think), and possibly trying the fat-free cream cheese. I didn't do fat-free this time because, frankly, the texture of the fat-free cream cheese is slimy and kind of grosses me out, so I didn't want to possibly have it ruin the cheesecake the first time I tried this.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Eid al-Adha, Happy Festivus, and Happiness to anyone I forgot.