One night not too long ago we made pizzas at home. I hope to do another blog post about that in a few days, but for today I want to focus on the cake in the foreground.

One of my cousins made a cake like this for a birthday party several years ago and I liked it so much I’ve been making it ever since. Not all the time, but whenever I get a craving for something really tasty that isn’t nearly as full of calories as it looks.

First, yes, it’s a cherry cheesecake, but it’s not made with fatty cream cheese. It’s made with cottage cheese, and that makes a huge difference.

Here’s what to do:

For the “crust” I use grated Graham wafers. I put them through my food processor and the wafers turn to crumbs in seconds. In the days before I had a food processor, I used to crush the wafers with a rolling pin.

You’ll need one cup of the crushed crumbs. Add a quarter cup of melted butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Toss the mixture with a fork and pour it into a pie plate or a springform cake tin with a flat bottom. Press the crumbs down to make a crust.

This is what it looks like when it’s baked in a glass pie plate with the cottage cheese mixture already in it.

Here are the ingredients for the crust:

1 cup Graham wafer crumbs

1/4 cup melted butter

2 Tablespoons of sugar

sprinkle of cinnamon

 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Then in the rinsed out food processor, put in all of the ingredients listed below and mix them with the processor until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Pour the mixture into the prepared crust.

At this point, if you are going to use cherries, use pitted ones, or scoop some out of the can of cherry pie filling and drop a few here and there into the creamy cake filling.

Then put the cake into the oven for one hour.

Here are the ingredients for the filling:

2 cups cottage cheese

1/2 cup of milk

2 eggs

3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2/3 cup (or a bit less) white sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

 

When the cake is done and the center is no longer liquid, take the cake out of the oven and set aside to cool, and possibly even put it in the fridge once it’s cool enough.

When the cake is chilled, pour the rest of the cherry pie filling on top and spread it around nearly to the edge of the cake.

Whip  some cream. I probably use about a cup and a half of whipping cream. To keep the whipping cream from going runny, when it is nearly thick enough with only about 15 to 30 seconds of whipping left to do, I add a teaspoon of powdered sugar, half a tsp. of vanilla, and a scant 1/4 cup of warm water that has about a tsp. of gelatin dissolved in it. It has no flavour, is good for you, but is not noticeable in the whipped cream. That gelatin will help the cream keep its shape on the cake rather than running down all over the cake in a milky water.

I use a tablespoon to put blobs of whipped cream all around the edge of the cake. Then I grate a bit of chocolate onto the whipped cream.

Here is the cake with a pineapple filling on top.

 

You can use other fruit instead of the cherry pie filling. I’ve used canned cherries and used the juice to make a sauce with a bit of sugar and cornstarch, boiled for a few minutes. Pour the cooled sauce over the cherries and then proceed with putting the whipped cream and chocolate on.

I’ve tried it with crushed pineapple, and I’d like to try it with peaches and cream.

This one that I made today has pineapple topping, whipped cream, a few cherries cut up on top, and some chocolate sprinkles. That’s it. A low-cal cheesecake that is delicious.

I’ll add the pineapple filling recipe here in case you want to use it sometime (made with canned pineapple):

Pineapple Filling

1/2 cup sugar

2 Tbsp. cornstarch

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup orange juice

1/2 cup pineapple juice

2/3 cup crushed pineapple

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

2 Tbsp. butter

1/2 cup coconut

In a saucepan mix sugar and cornstarch; add salt and orange juice and pineapple juice. Cook 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add crushed pineapple and lemon juice. Cook 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat. Stir in butter and coconut. Chill.

*****

What I like best about this dessert is that you don’t come away from the table feeling like you’ve been gut-bombed.

(I guess that’s not very ladylike, but who said I was a lady?)