Aunt Rocky’s Caramel Pecan No-Bake Cheesecake (LCHF)

You can make this with a hand mixer, stand mixer, or a whisk, the choice is yours. You may have a few small cream cheese lumps in it if you use a whisk, but that’s the way I make it.

Get out 1/2-cup containers (I use small wide-mouth canning jars with lids) and set aside.

For the crust:
In a small mixing bowl, melt butter. Add finely chopped nuts and a shake or two of salt. Mix well. Using a teaspoon, put just enough nuts in each serving container to cover the bottom. (If you want a few nuts on top for garnish, set a little aside. Or just chop an extra tablespoon of nuts for that purpose and set aside for now.)

For the filling:
In a medium mixing bowl, soften cream cheese to the point you can easily whip it with a whisk. Even if it’s room temperature, you will want to put it in the microwave for about 15 seconds or so. Whisk or mix it well until creamy and with no visible lumps.

Add cream, vanilla and caramel extract and mix again. Add powdered sweetener and give a final mix.

Using a soup spoon, drop filling into each serving container evenly. Smooth the top a little. If you reserved some nuts for the top, sprinkle them on now.

If you’re using lidded jars, put the lids on, label them, and either refrigerate or freeze for storage.

Notes:
1. Nuts and crust can be omitted, if desired, to reduce calories or to make recipe suitable for Atkins Induction phase. If you omit the crust, the calories would drop to 168, net carb count would remain the same due to rounding.
2. To reduce net carbs to 2g (or if you don’t like a strong cheesecake taste), substitute 1/2 of the cream cheese with softened mascarpone. Calories and fats would remain the same, but net carbs would be 2g including the nuts.
3. If you don’t have caramel extract or flavoring, you can use any other extract/flavoring you like. The outcome will still be delicious, and the numbers will be the same.

Recipe adapted from Low Carb-ology. Modifications include reducing amount of nuts, increasing amount of caramel extract, changed the type of sweetener, reduced carbs and calories, and simplified the method.

Nutritional information (estimates are per serving based on exact ingredients I used, calculated with a free online recipe analyzer): Calories 321*, Total Fat 34 g, Saturated Fat 14 g, Sodium 160 mg, Potassium 2 mg, Total Carbohydrate 2 g, Dietary Fiber 0 g, Net Carbs 2 g, Sugars, Protein 4 g. Macros: 93% fat, 5% protein, 2% carbs.

*If you omit the nut crust, the calories would be only 168, net carb count would remain the same due to rounding.

© July 21, 2016 Roxana Lopez

For more low carb/keto recipes and cooking tips, look for Aunt Rocky’s Low Carb Recipes Group on Facebook.