Cafe mocha cheesecake

By Jim Romanoff, Associated Press

A love of cheesecake is easily soured when you look at what goes into it.

Many versions have 30 or even 40 grams of fat per slice and can call for a pound of full-fat cream cheese in addition to sour cream, half a dozen egg yolks and half a stick of butter, or more, in the crust.

Fortunately, it is possible to make a healthier — yet still satisfying — cheesecake. It’s just a matter of choosing the right ingredients.

This cafe mocha cheesecake is rich and velvety, yet has just two-thirds of the fat and half the calories of traditionally made versions.

To lighten up the filling, full-fat cream cheese is swapped out for a mixture of pressed and puréed nonfat cottage cheese and reduced-fat Neufchatel cream cheese. An additional hit of creaminess comes from reduced-fat sour cream.

For a rich, chocolatey flavor, cocoa powder is used instead of semisweet chocolate. Cocoa powder contains only a small fraction of the fat of chocolate. Instant espresso powder and coffee liqueur, such as Kahlua, are added to enhance the flavor of the chocolate.

Finally, a light crust is made (without all the butter) by simply coating the bottom and sides of the pan with crushed chocolate wafer cookies. If you like, you could use plain or chocolate graham crackers instead.

Start to finish: 1 hour 25 minutes, plus 5 hours cooling time

Servings: 16

6 chocolate wafer cookies or chocolate graham crackers

1 tablespoon plus 1 1/4 cups sugar

2 tablespoons instant espresso or dark roast coffee powder

2 1/2 tablespoons coffee liqueur, or water

2 cups nonfat cottage cheese

1 1/3 cups reduced-fat sour cream

12 ounces Neufchatel (reduced-fat cream cheese)

6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 large eggs

2 large egg whites

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

 1/4 teaspoon salt

Cocoa powder

Heat the oven to 300 F. Coat a 9-inch springform pan with cooking spray.

With a rolling pin or the bottom of a heavy skillet, crush the cookies into fine crumbs. In a small bowl, stir together the cookie crumbs with 1 tablespoon of the sugar. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and tilt to coat the bottom and sides. Set aside.

In a small bowl, dissolve the espresso powder in the liqueur or water and set aside. Place the cottage cheese in a double layer of cheesecloth and gather the corners at the top. Squeeze out as much liquid as possible.

Place the drained cottage cheese in a food processor and process until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add the sour cream, Neufchatel, flour, eggs, egg whites, cocoa, cinnamon, salt and the remaining 1  1/4 cups sugar and the dissolved espresso powder. Process until smooth.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the edges are set 1 inch from the sides but the center of the cake is still a bit wobbly. Turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake inside with the door closed for 30 minutes longer to continue cooking.

Set the cheesecake on a wire rack to cool completely, about 1 hour. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before removing from the pan and serving. Just before serving, sprinkle lightly with cocoa powder.

Nutrition information per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 184 calories; 73 calories from fat (40 percent of total calories); 8 g fat (5 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 50 mg cholesterol; 21 g carbohydrate; 8 g protein; 0 g fiber; 238 mg sodium.

Quick banana coffee cake streusel muffins

By J.M. Hirsch, Associated Press

If I’m going to bother to bake something, it had better be good.

And it needs to be easy and create as little mess as possible. If it also could combine the toasty, warm, cinnamony flavors of my favorite baked goods — banana bread, coffee cake and streusel toppings — the chances of me actually cranking up the oven increase dramatically.

Thus was the inspiration for these muffins, which are made entirely in the food processor, call for no unusual ingredients, come together in about 10 minutes, bake in just about 20 minutes, and have a flavor that will make you want to eat until your stomach hurts.

To take these even more over the top, you could drizzle them with caramel sauce just before serving and/or add white chocolate chips to the batter before baking. If for some reason you wanted to make these healthier, you could use white whole-wheat flour instead of all-purpose.

Start to finish: 30 minutes

Makes 12 muffins

FOR THE STREUSEL TOPPING:

 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

4 tablespoons ( 1/2 stick) butter, cut into small pieces and softened

 1/2 cup brown sugar

 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

FOR THE MUFFINS:

 3/4 cup sour cream

2 bananas

1 teaspoon cinnamon

 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

 3/4 cup brown sugar

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

4 tablespoons ( 1/2 stick) butter, cut into small pieces and softened

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 12-cup muffin pan with baking spray, or line it with paper muffin cups.

To prepare the streusel, combine the flour, butter, brown sugar and cinnamon in a food processor. Process for 15 seconds, or until well blended and resembles slightly clumpy wet sand. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.

To prepare the muffins, combine the sour cream and bananas in the food processor. Process until smooth. Add the cinnamon, ginger, salt, vanilla, egg and brown sugar. Process again until smooth. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and butter. Pulse only until combined. Add  1/4 of the streusel mixture, pulse the processor 2 to 3 times.

Scoop a generous  1/4 cup of batter into each muffin cup. Top each with a heaping spoonful of streusel topping, pressing it lightly into the top of the batter. Bake for 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted at the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes.

Nutrition information per muffin (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 310 calories; 97 calories from fat (31 percent of total calories); 11g fat (7 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 48 mg cholesterol; 49 g carbohydrate; 5 g protein; 1 g fiber; 172 mg sodium.