Low Carb Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheesecake

 Carrie's Low Carb Peanut Butter Chocolate Cheesecake 


Ingredients: 32 ounces Cream cheese
1 cup Splenda
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
3/4 cup SF peanut butter (smooth or chunky, your choice)
4 Eggs, plus 1 Egg yolk
2 tablespoons heavy cream
3 Squares Semi-Sweet Chocolate (baking bar), melted in double boiler

How To Prepare: Bring all cold ingredients to room temperature. With an electric mixer, combine the cream cheese and splenda at slow to medium speed, scraping sides often. Add the vanilla and cream. When completely mixed (with no lumps), add the eggs and egg yolk, one at a time, beating very slowly.


When eggs are incorporated separate out one cup of batter then add the peanut butter into the rest of the batter. When peanut butter is blended in, don't mix any more. Over-mixing the batter is a contributing cause of cracked cheesecakes. (The leading cause of cracking is over-cooking, so don't believe any one who tells you it is normal for a cheesecake to be cracked; it isn't Always treat the batter gently. To the one cup of separated batter, add the three squares of melted chocolate and blend.


Add half of the chocolate batter to the bottom of a well-greased springform pan. Gently add the peanut butter batter, and then cover with remaining chocolate batter and spread to cover the top (no peanut butter batter should show through). The idea is to create a peanut butter cup, cook to the cheesecake with the chocolate batter at the top and bottom.


Place the pan on a very large piece of aluminum foil, and fold the foil up around the pan to create a watertight barrier around the cheesecake. Then place the springform pan in an even larger pan and fill the larger pan halfway with water. This is called a water bath. It is a gentler way to cook the cheesecake.


Place the entire water bath containing the cheesecake in a 300-degree preheated oven. Cook for 1 hour and reduce heat to 200 degrees for 1 more hour. Turn oven off and leave cheesecake in until the oven is completely cool. The cheesecake can even be left overnight at this point. Cracks can also occur when a cheesecake cools too quickly, so don't rush this process. Let it set up for several hours in the fridge, preferably overnight.

Yields: 12 Servings