Luxurious Low(er)-Fat Cheese Cake

 Cheesecake. A romantic, tantalizing dessert. I remember the time I ate at Cheesecake Factory. I died of happiness. Unfortunately I had a State Cross Country meet the next morning so they had to revive me. But it was amazing. Surprisingly I didn't eat any cheesecake, so I can't praise their work. But if it was half as good as the rest of the food, man oh man....

Well, I've never made cheesecake. I love cheesecake but I know, even as someone who never counts calories, that this dish can destroy a diet. It just so happened that one of the best recipes I found (from foodnetwork) was low fat. I was intrigued. I couldn't believe you could get anywhere close to that dream taste while subbing the ingredients....

Well. Turns out you can! Ta-Da!

Bake Temp: 325

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Bake Time: 50 minutes

Cool/Sit Time: 3 hours

Ready-In: 4 hours

  

For Crust

12 whole sheets graham crackers
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoon melted unsalted butter

For Filling

3 ounces semisweet chocolate
24 ounces 1 percent cottage cheese
8 ounces 1/3 less fat cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 egg
2 egg whites
2 tsps vaniller

Begin with your crust. To make a nice cheese cake you're going to want a very special kind of pan. It's got this fancy old spring release thing on the side, so the wall comes off and your cheesecake will just appear when ready.

 Look how nice and fancy that is! I'd really recommend one if you want to make a respectable cheesecake.

So. For the crust. Begin by heating your oven to 325. Gosh, that's low, you might say. Well, the lower the better. Longer bake time means a more moist filling. Anyways,  blend your graham crackers until they resemble nothing less than a powdery fairy dust.

Then mash in the other three crust ingredients. Butter the sides of your pan. Push the crumble into the bottom evenly.

 Place in the fridge to harden and cool. In the meantime make the filling. The crust needs at least 15 minutes to sit, so keep that in the back of your mind.
This is real simple. I promise. Take out your biggest blender (the magic bullet ain't gonna cut it here). Blend the bejeezus out of the cottage cheese. You want the smoothest, silkiest puree you can get.  Now blend in the cream cheese, sugar, cocoa powder and flour. Prepare your egg white. Dump in and blend until smoooooooooooth.

When the crust is ready, having chilled for at least 15 minutes, pour filling into crust evenly.

 

Microwave the semi-sweet chocolate until melted. Gently pour over the top of the cake. I made a straight line, then ran a toothpick through it to make my design.

 Fill a casserole dish 1/2 way with water, put on lower shelf. This will serve to keep your cake nice and moisturized through the baking.
 

 Bake at 325 for 45-55 minutes. Be VERY mindful not to over bake. It will continue baking once it has been removed from the oven, so you want the center to still be jiggly. After 45-55 minutes, with a center still jiggly, turn off oven but LEAVE THE CAKE INSIDE! YEAH. For one hour. NOW you can remove it. Run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen everything up. Let sit for 2 hours, then put in fridge until desired munching time.

 Decorate as you please, I recommend strawberries and raspberries!

Be careful of munching papa's.