No-Bake Low-Fat Strawberry-Rhubarb Cheesecake

Thanks Ava for the inspiration and suggestion!

With us being on holidays, I wanted to make a no-bake cheesecake that wasn’t a cholesterol bomb. Cheesecake is Reg’s favourite dessert and I knew we would end up eating all of it ourselves (and we did over time).

I turned this recipe into a low fat version and topped it with my homemade strawberry rhubarb sauce.

This is the part I screwed up. The crust. I had all these vanilla cookies leftover from the Royal Wedding Groom’s Cake that I wanted to use up so I processed them and added some melted butter which normally would be fine. I just did not add enough melted butter.

I pressed the crust into a springform pan.

I thought this crumb crust looked fine and put it in a preheated 325F oven for 10 minutes. To avoid this issue and turning on your oven, you could always buy a pre-made crust. Oh well, live and learn!

I let the crappy crust cool completely and then moved on to the filling.

To make the cheesecake I beat one room temperature 8 oz package of low fat cream cheese until creamy.

Then I added 1/3 cup of sugar and beat together until it was nice and smooth. Remember to scrape the sides! You need the sugar to dissolve into the cream cheese by beating it together.

Then I added 1 cup of low fat sour cream and 2 tsp of vanilla bean paste. You can use vanilla extract if that is what you have.

I may be skimping on the fat but not when it comes to flavour! Also, I wanted to see those beautiful specks throughout the cheesecake.

Scrape! Scrape! Scrape! Make sure everything is super combined.

OK normally I would never use a product like Cool Whip but it is a low fat alternative to using whipped cream. I added 8 ounces of low fat Cool Whip to the filling, which was almost an entire container.

I folded it together until it was well combined without folding too much.

I poured it on top of the crumbly crust.

I smoothed the top with my bowl scraper and put it in the refrigerator for four hours. 

I used a palette knife to loosen the cheesecake from the ring of the springform pan. Then I removed the ring and the crust came raining out all over the sides. Ugh! Thankfully the cheesecake filling behaved perfectly.

After topping it with my homemade strawberry rhubarb sauce the crust really did not matter. This was a beautiful light and airy cheesecake! At first Reg was a bit disappointed at how mousse-like it was but after a day or so, absolutely adored it and wanted more. Me too!

I was absolutely thrilled that I could make a dessert that was so easy and less guilt-inducing than most cheesecakes that we could indulge in for days. Of course you could always top it with another sauce. I think in late August I will make a blueberry version! I might also increase the amount of cream cheese I use and decrease the amount of Cool Whip to give it that more traditional texture.

Experimenting in the kitchen is never over! I LOVE that!