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Do you love brownies, but need an easy grain-free version? Once again, former pastry chef Megan Keatley of Health-Bent comes through for all of us with a healthier version of an old favorite in this guest post just in time for the holidays. No grains, no refined sweeteners, and no refined vegetable oils.Thanks, Megan!
I’ve taken my favorite fudgey brownie recipe and added a little holiday pizazz with some cheesecake batter swirled in. Adapt this recipe by removing the vanilla from the cheesecake batter and adding your favorite extract, like mint, orange or coffee; or you could mix in a bit of raspberry jam. Very easy to put together, hard to screw up, festive and something the kids can help you make. What more could you ask for?
Grain-Free Cheesecake Swirl Brownies
Yield: 12 brownies
The Players
Brownie Ingredients
- 1 c almond butter (where to find nut butters from properly soaked nuts)
- 2 eggs (from pastured hens)
- 1/3 c cocoa powder
- 1/2 c canned coconut milk (full fat) (where to find coconut milk)
- 1/2 c coconut palm sugar (where to find sustainably harvested coconut palm sugar)
- 1/4 t salt
- 1/3 c chocolate chips (optional)
Cheesecake Ingredients
- 8 oz cream cheese (or make your own yogurt cheese)
- 1 egg (from pastured hens)
- 1/3 c coconut crystals or palm sugar
- 2 t vanilla extract
The How-To
Set your oven to 350 F.
In a large bowl, whisk together the brownie ingredients until well combined, and pour into a greased 9×9 oven-safe baking dish.
Add the cream cheese to your mixer bowl and beat until smooth, add the rest of the ingredients and beat until combined.
Dollop the cream cheese batter on top of the brownie batter. Using a knife, or a toothpick, swirl the cheesecake batter into the brownie batter. This would be a great thing for kids to do! Another option would be to remove the vanilla extract and add your favorite extract flavoring to the cheesecake batter; mint, almond, orange, coffee, coconut–would all work well.
Bake for about 35 minutes–until the top has slightly cracked. Serve well chilled, just like cheesecake.
Wow, looks great! Do you think you could sub in date paste for the palm sugar or would it throw off the consistency?
I think you could do that if you reduce the amount of coconut milk. My guess would be to reduce the coconut milk by 1/5th or 1/6th if I was using the date paste instead of coconut or palm sugar. But, no promises!
Oh, yes. I think I’ve found the Christmas Day Dessert I’ve been looking for! I hope substituting honey for the palm sugar will work.
Cristie — I think you could substitute honey, but you’d have to modify the recipe. Honey is not only significantly sweeter than coconut or palm sugar, but it’s also a liquid. When I substitute honey, I reduce the liquid by 1/3 cup for every cup of honey I use.
Thanks for the tip! I do have Sucanat on hand, but haven’t had the greatest results with that. I’ll have to try it out before the big day.
My family will devour those!
great timing! hubby has been asking for cheesecake, and this has a recipe for homemade cream cheese!
Oh yes!!! THANK YOU!! Perfect timing!!!
Can’t wait to try the coconut sugar. What brand do you like or recommend?
@Kristen — There are Amazon links in the posts for the brands I most commonly use. It depends on where I shop. The BEST deal on coconut sugar is at my local Asian market.
Holy Cow – my mom would love this!
Whoa. These look insanely good. I’m so excited to have a sweet treat that I can eat on Christmas!
These look excellent! I have metabolic syndrome, so I can’t have sugar in any form. I’ll have to see if I can figure out how to sub stevia without loosing the bulking properties of sugar, possibly by increasing the cream cheese and almonds.
These look incredible! I’m intrigued by palm sugar – having followed SCD for a number of years I’m starting to branch out and think about other things. I tend to use small amounts of dates and honey, but if you have any tips on info about palm sugar I’d be very grateful!
x x x
Looks fabulous. The ingredients work for me.
I made these last night for a friend who is gluten sensitive for Xmas. Loved how easy they are to make.
Taste test after chilling overnight! WOW, it’s like a cheesecake landed on top of a decadent dark chocolate brownie and you only need a little piece to feel very happy indeed. I used the trader joes bittersweet (no sugar) gallettes, cut them in half and added 1/3 cup to the brownie batter. They are delish when you find one, deep dark and a bit crunchy. YUM. I think adding walnuts or mac nuts to this might make it the best thing ever for satisfying a sweet/fat tooth craving.
Thanks for sharing this!
These look phenomenal! I’m bookmarking this in my “grain free” folder.
This sounds amazing, will be making it this weekend to curb sweet tooth.
Why use full fat coconut milk?Would the low fat option work ?
Can I substitute the palm sugar with carob molasses ?
I would never use low fat coconut milk as it has additives in it. Full fat coconut milk will not harm you.
Holy Cow these look delicious!!!!!!!!
Thanks for sharing.
for anyone who may be interested in the nutritional value and calories, I found a website that can analyse the recipe…. see below (although I had to change the palm sugar to brown sugar as it did not recognise it)
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 79 g
Amount Per Serving
Calories 307Calories from Fat 217
% Daily Value*
Total Fat 24.1g37%
Saturated Fat 8.9g45%
Cholesterol 68mg23%
Sodium 133mg6%
Total Carbohydrates 19.6g7%
Dietary Fiber 1.9g7%
Sugars 12.8g
Protein 7.0g
Vitamin A 6% • Vitamin C 1%
Calcium 10% • Iron 11%
Nutrition Grade D+
* Based on a 2000 calorie diet
1 c almond butter (view)
2 eggs (view)
1/3 c cocoa powder (view)
1/2 c canned coconut milk (view)
1/2 c brown sugar (view)
1/4 t salt (view)
1/3 c chocolate chips (view)
8 oz cream cheese (view)
1 egg (view)
1/3 c brown sugar (view)
2 t vanilla extract (view)
Servings 12
@RJ_UK – what website did you use to analyze the recipe?
Thanks!
Erin
Seriously! You area woman after my own heart!
These are so amazing! I have made them twice now
They are good out of the oven but fantastic after they have been in the fridge overnight 
Thanks!!!!!
@Erin
Hi there sorry for the late reply. I often use the following website:
http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php?process=resubmit&count=38
You enter the ingrediants and it tells you the nutritional value.
Good luck
Sounds and looks great. Nut allergies in our house otherwise I was going to try this.
Enjoy a bite for me.
Totally going to make this tonight!
Petra – could you use tahini instead of almond butter?
just made these, but skipped the cheesecake swirl. SO happy with the results!
I think Sunbutter would be a better substitution than tahini.
Used Coconut Cream Concentrate instead of almond butter. Yum!
Love it! Thank you so much! My foot is halfway out of the office, headed to the kitchen to make my chocolate loving husband a batch of brownies.
We have been using Sunbutter in place of nutbutters lately and I have to say we really really love it! Having peanut, treenut, latex, shellfish, and now gluten allergies in our house I was becoming quite discouraged. This looks yummy and I can’t wait to try it.
This looks fabulous! Brownies are my big downfall. I’ll have to look at the coconut crystal alternative.
I’ve never even heard of coconut sugar til now.. crazy! those look very yummy!
What do you think about subbing the almond butter with Sunflower seed butter? I guess I just better try it…
I think it would also be interesting to try coconut butter, sometimes also called Coconut Manna. I made a cake with it recently that someone had modified, originally calling for almond butter and it turned out fantastic!
Oh, sorry for my last comment, I just saw the others about sunflower butter. Thanks SO MUCH for this incredibly awesome blog!!!
I made these brownies the other day for my boyfriend and his mom and they were amazing! They loved them. I was a little worried that the almond butter flavor would be to overpowering, but it is just perfect. Also, you can really taste the cheescake part. Delish!
O man! I just popped these in the oven and realized I totally forgot to add the nut butter!! eeps!
The recipes sound fabulous and I am going to make the Cheesecake Brownies for sure. Do you think you could ask your sponsors to stop with the animated commercials. They really slow my computer down and are irritating to my eyes. It is time they switch to a more user friendly format.
Waw! Your brownies are looking just fabulous, tasty & special too!
Fab food!
This looks so yummy, but any suggestions for alternative to the almond butter? We have nut allergies in our house, and I prefer to avoid almonds (even though they are “supposedly” on our safe list).
These look wonderful! I’m going to try making them with honey to make them a GAPS-legal dessert.
For those with nut allergies, sun butter or coconut manna (sometimes called coconut butter, it’s easy to make your own) is a good substitute.
A must read please & pass along…. http://www.tropicaltraditions.com/coconut_palm_sugar.htm
That’s not the whole story on coconut sap production. Read this and weigh whether or not sap collection can be good:
http://www.wildernessfamilynaturals.com/collection-of-coconut-sap.php
Planning to make these for my husband’s birthday today as he told me he wanted either cheesecake or brownies
Ooh! These look absolutely delicious!!! Do you think there is any way to substitute Almond FLOUR for the Almond butter?