The Secret Ingredient Cheesecake with Strawberry Topping

Plan Z Phase: This is a Z3 (ZReboot) recipe. This is one of the moistest, most intense cheesecakes I have ever made. The recipe was adapted from one I saw in a House Beautiful magazine. I can’t take full credit. I did have to change it a lot to Zolafy it though. I hope you love it as much as I did.

I originally made this cheesecake for a special guest and her friends. Dieter Nancy won our dinner with Zola contest. I was supposed to make her a full dinner but I was truly under the weather with a horrible cold so I could only muster dessert. We took the gang out to dinner and brought our own dessert to the restaurant. The restaurant did not complain. They happily served it to us knowing we were all on a no-sugar diet. Even a few of the waiters got to share a couple of extra pieces. Thank you to Nancy for making the trip and bringing along some fun folks!

The secret ingredient is goat cheese. Don’t tell your guests it’s in there. Just let them guess. Kinda fun.

Servings: 8 – 10 servings

Ingredients:

For the cake:

  • ½ cup of chopped pecan pieces
  • 4 oz of cream cheese (full fat), room temperature
  • 4 oz of goat cheese, room temperature
  • 1 pint of sour cream (full fat)
  • 3 eggs
  • 5 tsp of Truvia
  • juice of one lemon
  • 1 tsp of organic vanilla

For the topping:

  • 2 cups of strawberry slices
  • 2 tsp of Truvia
  • juice of 1 lemon
  • 2 oz of Grand Marnier (if you don’t cook with liqueur you can use water or add a bit of orange flavoring or orange stevia drops).

Instructions:

For the cake

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Take out your 9” springform pan. Lightly spray the bottom of it with olive oil spray. Spread across the pecan pieces. Wrap the bottom of the pan and up the sides with aluminum foil to protect the cheesecake.

Put the rest of the ingredients in your food processor and process until smooth. Scrape down sides half way through if necessary. (If you don’t have a food processor you can do this in a bowl with a mixer too).

SLOWLY pour the cheesecake mixture over the pecans. I say do this slowly and evenly so it doesn’t disturb the pecans. If you do it too fast some of the pecans will end up floating further up to the top. That happened to me and it’s not a big deal, but if you want your pecans to stay at the bottom you have to do this slowly.

Now you are going to make a water bath for your cheesecake. Put the wrapped cheesecake in a pan that’s larger than the 9” springform pan. Add water until it comes half way up the sides of the pan. Do NOT exceed the height of the aluminum foil or the water just might get into the cheesecake.

Carefully transfer to the oven and bake for 45-50 minutes. The cheesecake will still be slightly jiggly. Carefully remove the cheesecake from the water bath and leave on the counter for 45 min – 1 hour to cool. Then transfer to your refrigerator.

For the topping

While the cheesecake is baking or cooling you can make your topping. This topping can be made with other berries besides strawberry but I assure you the strawberry is a hit.

Put ingredients (see ingredients list above) in a small sauce pan and heat until it just begins to bubble. Turn off. The sauce will be watery in texture with the strawberries for balance.

Hold the sauce, if possible, in the refrigerator separate from the cheesecake. Spoon a small amount of sauce over each piece as you serve it. If you put the strawberries and sauce on top ahead of time you risk making the cheesecake mushier but I did that because I had to transport the cheesecake and it was just fine.

Enjoy!

Cheers,