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This morning, I got up and realized that I needed to get my butt back into gear. I’ve been backsliding a lot lately, and not only does it make me feel kind of crappy…but I definitely put on a few pounds over the past weeks. Whoops! So, I decided to motivate myself by baking some low carb cheesecake breakfast bars.
My problem has been (and usually is), that I just don’t have something at the ready when I’m craving a snack, and since CM eats a pretty high carb diet, it’s all too easy to reach for those chips. Now, I’m not making excuses for myself… okay, I sort of am. But I totally get how easy it is to say, “screw it – I’ll just have a few” and watch that morph into a whole slew of chips…and then some chocolate…and then back to keto foods, like everything will just balance out (it doesn’t).
Anyway, these breakfast bars remind me of those cheesecake danishes that are ubiquitous at brunches everywhere and are definitely what Santa wants to eat in lieu of sugary cookies.
Notes on baking Low Carb Cheesecake Breakfast Bars:
- I used vanilla protein powder for this, but if you only have plain, just add in a tbsp of vanilla extract (or be fancy, and use almond). For more info on vegan keto protein powders, check out this post.
- I sprinkled a cinnamon and Swerve mixture on top of these before baking, and it really adds a nice touch. You could also use chocolate chips, or crushed nuts, or crushed peppermint, or orange peel – pretty much anything you’d like.
- These are going to be a bit soft for the first 20 minutes in the oven – do not fret! They eventually set up beautifully.
- The cooling stage is pretty important here, otherwise, they will fall apart, and you will be sad.
- I use Trader Joe’s vegan cream cheese, but there are tons of other brands that will work. Kite Hill makes a whole foods-based cream cheese from almonds that I hear is very good.
Low Carb Cheesecake Breakfast Bars
Ingredients
- 6 ounces cream cheese softened
- 1/2 cup canned coconut milk mix it well!
- 1/4 cup Swerve or other granulated sweetener
- 2 scoops 60g total vanilla protein powder
- 2 tbsp coconut flour
- Cinnamon to sprinkle on top or whatever you'd like - chocolate chips, citrus peel, nuts - the world is your oyster.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Cream together cream cheese and Swerve.
- Stir in coconut milk, and mix until thoroughly combined.
- Stir in coconut flour and vanilla protein powder, until completely mixed in.
- Pour into an 8 x 8" pan (grease it, if not using a silicon one), sprinkle cinnamon on top and bake for 30 minutes, until the entire thing has set.
- Let cool for 30 minutes, slice, and serve.
Nutrition
Thank you, making these now. One thing you left out unless I missed it is that if you’re up late gaming you can do when something fast and easy to grab in the morning-these look great, and yes, snacks while gaming are important….I tend to go for peanuts and Stur drinks.. had to give up Pepsi and DeW long ago, lol!
Ugh phone speak. = need something.
Oh, yes! This is a really good point. I should definitely add that, because you’re right – it’s crucial to have something healthy you can grab, otherwise I find myself reaching for whatever junk is closest! Haha, yeah, I had to give up soda a while ago, too, but I do miss that jolt of energy! lol
Oh, me too! I remember our guildies on EQ2 going AFK to do a “Dew Run”…
I drink coffee in the morning, though, and this Breakfast Cheesecake is my fav for
breakfast. I made a double batch two days ago, and top it with Fage plain yogurt that has Zylitol mixed in.
I’m an oldster, I used to love the original Sara Lee Cheesecake years ago, but the last time I tried
it, it wasn’t the same. Probably all the chemicals. That is another good point of eating low carb/keto,
making your food means it is better quality food.
Best wishes and good gaming! 😀
Hi,
are you using vegan cream ‘cheese’ in this recipe or regular? im confused if this is a vegan recipe or not.
Thanks!
I just made these but mfp tells me they are a whopping 9 grams of carbs per serving…am I missing something?
Hi Stephanie – this is a great question!
Because MFP doesn’t have a spot for sugar alcohols, it can be difficult to account fot things like sweeteners. Swerve (and similar sweeteners) uses erithrytol, which doesn’t impact blood sugar and only contains .2 calories per gram, as compared to the 4 calories per gram of sugar.
Because of the fact that your body really doesn’t digest erithrytol, those sugar alcohol grams are not counted in the recipe. However, MFP will count the full number of sugar alcohols as carbs.
If you scroll through ingredients enough, you can find adjusted entries that remove the sugar alcohols that come from erithrytol, to give you a more realistic idea of what you’re eating!
There’s more info on sugar alcohols here, in this article: https://www.tasteaholics.com/keto-diet/what-is-erythritol/
Additionally, there are always variances in the nutritional profiles of ingredients, so if you didn’t use the exact same ones I did, there could be a small discrepency.
I hope this was helpful! 🙂
Super helpful, thank you so much Liz!
My pleasure, Stephanie! I’ve definitely had that panic moment looking at an MFP calculation!
yum
Could you use almond milk cream cheese?
Absolutely, Ella! 🙂
2 scoops protein power is how much? My scoop sizes vary by brand.
Hi Sathya, this is a great question! Each scoop of the protein powder used is ~30g. I’ll update the recipe notes to reflect this!