Marveled Cheesecake

I have a lot of kids. So, when a hungry kid came to ask what I was making as I was cooking dinner and dessert, I told him, "Marbeled Cheesecake, now go and tell someone else." Without fail, another hungry kid comes to ask what I'm cooking. I said, "Go ask Dexter." So, Dexter told anyone else who asked, "Marveled Cheesecake."

I really tried to follow the recipe this time, well mostly, I did make it gluten free.

I always try to give credit where credit is due. I found this delicious recipe on this website: with a spin. She has really beautiful pictures.

I'm not going to explain the whole recipe here, since it it done so well on the other blog. My cake wasn't as fluffy, but it was moist and delicious. I wasn't even sure if I liked beets, but they were really good in this recipe.

I made a mistake or two and I made some substitutions, but it still turned out great! I accidently cooked it at 375˚ F, instead of 350˚ and it still turned out fine, though it was starting to burn at one edge that was closer to the oven wall. (The higher temp is for cooking the beet, not the cake.)

The recipe called for a large beet that you bake and then puree. Well, I hadn't fully committed to making this on my last quick trip to the store, so I just picked up a couple of cans of beets thinking they might last longer than a fresh beet.

Since I used canned, I figured it would be soft enough to puree without baking and I was right. It pretty much took the whole can to make the one cup of puree.

I added the fresh lemon juice before blending. My lemon was juicy enough that it was only half the lemon.

So, I set the beets aside and mixed the dry ingredients. Instead of the two cups of flour, I used one cup of flax meal

and for the other cup, I used a mixture of almond meal

and a scoop of vanilla protein powder

and a few teaspoons of rice flour.

I just poured those three things into a 1 Cup measuring cup until it was full. Then poured it into a bowl with baking powder, cocoa powder and salt.

So, then it was time to cream the oils and sugars in a different bowl. The recipe calls for 1 C of oil, so I used 3/4 cup of olive oil and 1/4 cup of coconut oil, because I love the way coconut oil smells, but it can be powerful, and expensive and I was almost out. I had to soften it on the stove as it is still winter, so it is solid in the cabinet. Sorry no picture of the coconut oil.

Anyway for the sugar, I did use the brown sugar as directed, but instead of the 1 Cup of white sugar, I used this coconut sugar I found at Costco.

It is lightly carmelized and not very sweet, so I added three little packets of Stevia to make sure it would be sweet. If you haven't heard of "this remarkable noncaloric herb," You can read all about at stevia.net.

Then, I added the eggs and vanilla extract and mixed that together and then mixed the wet and dry ingredients together. You're supposed to fold in the cup of beet puree. I've never had the skill to 'fold' so I just stir. Then, add milk. I used coconut milk, because it's delicious! And I'm trying to cut down on dairy, though this IS cheesecake, so I'm not totally dairy free!

Then, you're supposed to scoop out 3/4 Cup of this batter and set it aside and to it add the remaining two tablespoons of milk, but I didn't read the sentence all the way through and added the extra milk to the main batter. Oops, so I tried to scoop it out and put it in with the 3/4 Cup, so I got some out and I still added more coconut milk to the 3/4 Cup, which is supposed to be runnier to put on top of the cream cheese layer to make the marbling. I knew this when I read the recipe a couple weeks ago, but forgot. That's the trouble when you think you already know something. Always read the whole sentence! But it was fine just mixing in the little bit of extra milk.

The recipe says to put it in a greased jelly roll pan. I didn't know what that was, so I greased a cake pan, thinking it'd be fine... Then, I got nervous and decided to google "jelly roll pan" to see what I was missing. It's basically just a cookie sheet with one inch sides. I decided my cookie sheet was good enough for that, so I lined it with parchment and poured the batter from the cake pan onto the jelly roll pan. LOL.

Anyway, at this point, it was time to make the cheesecake layer. I love cream cheese! But, I let my kids eat almost all of one of the packages when someone gave us bagels unexpectedly. It's supposed to have 16 oz. of cream cheese, but I had little more than eight ounces, so substitution to the rescue! I used this honey flavored greek yogurt, which is delicious all by itself, by the way.

Again, I used the coconut sugar in the cream cheese, and added a little squirt of honey, the combination of which made my cream cheese kind of yellowish brownish colored, but it tasted great!

For good measure, I added the juice of the other half of the lemon, because I love lemon with cream cheese. Usually I make no-bake cheesecake, about which people who don't really like cheesecake have raved!

Here is the final product.

I was going to make them for Valentine's Day, so I served them in heart shapes, even though it was weeks later. He feels the love!

Picky eater #1 ate half of his and then added a tall tower of whipped cream to finish off the second half.

She loved it and asked for seconds!

Picky eaters #2 & 3 only ate half of theirs.

Spencer liked it, though said he would've like it better without the cocoa powder. He has decided he doesn't like chocolate! Scandalous. I guess he takes after his grandma.

My husband liked it so much, this is what was left.

She's not frowning at the food, she's frowning at the flash of the camera.

I even loved the leftovers the next day!