High Protein Nutter Butter Chocolate Cheesecake

Have you tried using silken tofu to make a high-protein cheesecake? OK, maybe you’ve seen silken tofu used for a high protein cheesecake, but have you seen TVP used for high-protein cheesecake crust? These are the secret ingredients we are using for this recipe to get 24 g of protein per slice! This is a really easy recipe to follow and it tastes amazing. It’s perfect for a high protein snack and because it makes eight slices, you can meal prep this during the weekend (or whenever you have free time) and have a slice each night for dinner, chomp on it for a pre or post workout snack, or just eat it for breakfast. I even brought it as my lunch for a work training that I knew wouldn’t have any vegan options. I regretted that immediately though, because everyone was staring at me while I ate a cheesecake for lunch and I hate being the center of attention, but if you like attention, would highly recommend this move!

I have gotten some feedback that this isn’t the exact texture of a cheesecake, but I am not really sure what else to call it. So if you try this, and you agree, let me know what a better name for it is! In the meantime, I’m going to call it a vegan cheesecake. If you’re not feeling adventurous enough to make the TVP protein crust, you can just use a cookie crust instead. It would be really easy to make one with just Oreos or buy a pre-made one from the store. I actually really like the way the TVP crust works with this recipe. It stays together really well and has a nice subtle chocolate flavor that works great with the cheesecake filling. I will remind you here that this is an intentionally high protein recipe, so it’s not going to taste exactly the same as a high fat cheesecake with a ton of chocolate, butter, etc. It’s high protein, and it is really delicious for a high protein recipe! But if you’re wanting a really indulgent dessert, I would recommend using a cookie crust or checking out one of my other recipes that is not specifically focused on protein 🙂

For this high protein cheesecake, we’re using Nutter Butter cookies! If you don’t have these and want to sub Oreos or a different kind of vegan cookie, that should work too. If this recipe, in general, isn’t your jam, but you still want to try a high-protein cheesecake, I have some more recipes on the website you could look at, and I’m sure at least one of them will be tasty to you!

Ingredients

Cheesecake Filling

• Extra Firm Silken Tofu – I like to use extra firm silken tofu for this recipe. There are a few different types of tofu and if you’re unfamiliar with using tofu, this could be kind of confusing, so let’s talk about it. There are two different types of silken tofu – refrigerated, which you can find near the other tofu, and shelf-stable silken tofu, which you can usually find by the international food aisle. The shelf-stable variety has different firmness levels. I like to use extra firm silken tofu, because the macros are slightly better. If you can’t find either of these options at your grocery store, you can also buy them online! Silken tofu is such a great recipe ingredient to add creaminess to your dish and also a ton of protein. And because it’s a soy-based product, it’s a very neutral flavor, and will take on any flavor we add!
• Powdered Sugar – I like to use powdered sugar for this recipe to add volume and creaminess to the cheesecake filling. I also like to sift the powdered sugar just to make sure it’s as powdered as possible and doesn’t have any chunks. I know a lot of people don’t like using sugar, but I have only made it this way so don’t have much advice in the way of a reduced sugar option. If you happen to make this into a reduced sugar recipe, please share what you did in the comments so that others can benefit from your awesomeness!
• Vanilla extract – you can never have too much vanilla extract for baking. It is the garlic of baked goods!
• Flour – I used all purpose flour for this recipe. I f you have a gluten intolerance, you probably want to swap this for a gluten-free flour option. I don’t bake specifically gluten-free very often, so I don’t have a whole lot of advice to give you here. If you happen to make this recipe gluten-free, please share what you did in the comments, so everyone can learn from your gluten freegan wizardry!
• PB Fit peanut butter powder – I like the brand PB Fit for my peanut butter powder because the macros are slightly better. There’s another brand called PB2 that is also great. You can usually find at least one of these options at most grocery stores, and you can also buy these online. I prefer to use peanut butter powder in this recipe because we need more dry ingredients and also because it has a lot less fat than peanut butter spread, which will help provide us with more protein and make the macros better. If you have a nut allergy, I have some other cheesecake recipes that don’t use peanuts, if you want to check those out. Or if it’s just a peanut allergy, they do make almond powder and a cashew powder that you could sub the peanut butter powder for.
• Mini chocolate chips – I like to use Enjoy Life Mini Chocolate Chips, and just mini chocolate chips, in general, because I feel like I’m able to add less chocolate volume and still get a bite of chocolate in each bite because they’re minis! Feel free to use whatever chocolate you like.
• Salt – adjust to taste.
• Baking powder – we need baking powder in the cheesecake filling to get it to be fluffy.
• Nutter Butter Cookies – I used Nutter Butter Cookies, which I crushed by hand for this recipe. I kept them in pretty decently size chunks. These are optional, and if you omit them, the recipe will still taste great. You could also sub in a different cookie; I think Oreos would taste great in this!

Crust

• TVP – Textured Vegetable Protein – if you’re new to vegan cooking, you may not have used TVP, or even if you’re a long time vegan – you still may not have used TVP. In the States it’s typically called TVP or Textured Vegetable Protein, but I’ve also heard it called soy mince, textured soy, and some other names. So if TVP doesn’t sound familiar, it may just be called something different where you live. Either way, TVP is just de-fatted soy flour, and it’s a shelf-stable protein source that we use in vegan cooking quite often. You can find this in most grocery stores near the gluten-free flour options and you can also buy it online. One of my favorite brands is Bob’s Red Mill. I use it in all kinds of things, from sweet to savory recipes. You will often see TVP being re-hydrated before it’s used, but for this recipe, we will be using it dry.
• Ground Flax Seed – we will be using ground flax seed as our vegan egg substitute. Ground flax seed is one of my favorite vegan egg subs. It’s a shelf stable ingredient that’s super cheap and easy to use. We just mix in water, let it sit for about five minutes and we end up with flax goo.
• Brown sugar – I really like using brown sugar in the crust recipe, but if you’re trying to cut back on sugar, I think you could probably use some thing like flavored protein powder, or a different sugar alternative. I’ve only made it with brown sugar, so I don’t have any great recommendations here. But if you have any make this with as a reduced sugar option, let me know what you did in the comments; I would love to hear about it!
• Cocoa powder – I think the cocoa powder is really important for the crust recipe so that you get the chocolatey taste.
• Flour – we’re only using a little bit of flour in the crust recipe, but I did use all purpose flour. Feel free to substitute this for a gluten-free flour option.
• Salt – adjust to taste.

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350°F.
• In a small bowl, whisk together 3 tablespoons of ground flax seed with 9 tablespoons of water. We’re going to let this sit for at least five minutes until it turns into a gooey flax goo!

Cheesecake Filling

• While we’re waiting on the flax goo to goo, we are going to blend the tofu in a high powered blender until it’s very smooth and creamy.
• Dump the blended silken tofu into a large bowl and stir in the vanilla extract.
• Next, sift the powdered sugar and the PB Fit Peanut Butter Powder into the bowl with your tofu. If you don’t have a sifter, you don’t necessarily need to sift these ingredients; I just think it makes the filling creamier and smoother. Either way whisk these together well!
• Add in the flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk all of these ingredients together well until they are very creamy and well mixed. You should have no lumps left.
• Mix in the mini chocolate chips.
• Crush the Nutter Butters by hand. I kept them still in decent size chunks – they weren’t pulverized, more like crumbles. If you completely pulverize them in a food processor, you’re not gonna get bites of Nutter Butters and it’s just going to make your filling really grainy, so I recommend crushing by hand and keeping in decently large pieces. Once they’re crushed, add them to the cheesecake filling and stir together.

Making the Crust

• OK, so if you decided to skip the TVP crust because it sounds too weird to you, you can skip this step and just use a pre-made cookie crust or make your own cookie crust. For everyone else, let’s get weird!
• In a medium sized bowl, mix all of the ingredients listed in the crust section together – this includes TVP, ground flax seed goo, brown sugar, cocoa powder, salt, and, flour. This should end up pretty dry, similar to if you were making a cookie crust – it should be pliable, but not wet. Also, important note – DO NOT re-hydrate the TVP before using it!

Assembly

• In your pie pan, you’re going to dump the crust dough and evenly smooth it out on the bottom of the pan end of the sides. I use a pretty large pie pan, specifically a ceramic 10 inch deep dish. You are going to have a lot of filling, so I recommend a pretty deep dish pie pan. When spreading the pie crust, I really like to use the back of a spoon, and just press everything together really well so that when you go to cut it later, it doesn’t crumble. TVP in a pie crust might sound kind of weird, but it actually works really well as far as how it holds up. Every time I’ve made it, it has always come out in really nice solid pieces, which is not always the case when you’re making pie crust.
• Next pour your cheesecake filling on top of the crust, and smooth it out evenly. It should fit pretty perfectly to the top of your pie crust.
• Bake the cheesecake in the oven for 40 to 50 minutes. It should be pretty firm when it’s done with a slight jiggle left in the middle of the cheesecake. You can’t really test this with a toothpick method, because it will set up as it cools, and you don’t want to overcook it or it won’t be moist and delicious. So how I like to check it is by literally jiggling it a little bit – make sure that the outside is not really jiggling (it should be fairly firm), but you should have a little bit of a jiggle left in the very center of the cheesecake and that’s how you know it’s done. And in my opinion, for this, I would rather have it a little bit under baked then over baked.
• This next step is pretty important, although, to be honest, this is the hardest step in my opinion! We have to cool the cheesecake to room temperature, on the counter for two hours. You’re going want to cut it, I wanted to cut it, and I have cut it. And every time I did, I regretted it, because it does need to set up or it will just be kind of liquidy and gooey.
• Once it’s to room temperature, move it to the fridge for another two hours until it’s completely cooled down and then serve! Sadly, it almost always cracks in the middle a little bit when it’s cooling down so if yours does this, you didn’t do anything wrong and I have no idea how to prevent this from happening. I think it’s just science?

Silly Little Haiku

High Protein Cheesecake

Nutter Butter sounds dirty

This is soy, soy good