DESSERTS: CINNAMON CREAM CHEESE SQUARES (click here to print)

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Squares

by Leeann Mullen Teagno

Cut the Wheat, Ditch the Sugar

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Ingredients

Crust

• 2 C almond flour
• 2 T coconut flour
• 3 T sweetener Splenda or Stevia
• 6 T butter, slightly softened
• 6 egg whites, whipped until stiff (about 5 minutes)
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. xanthan gum

Filling

• 12 oz. cream cheese (1 ½ bricks), at room temperature
• 3/4 C sweetener (I used Swerve)
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Topping

• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon and 1/3 C sweetener (splenda or stevia) mixed together
• 3 T melted butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease an 8x8 or 9x9 square cake pan.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together crust ingredients almond flour, coconut flour, sweetener, salt, baking powder and xanthan gum until evenly mixed.
3. Cut in butter by adding it in small chunks and using a pastry cutter to make a fine, crumbly meal out of it. There will be small chunks of butter remaining, but no large chunks should be visible.
4. Fold in egg whites by hand. You will lose much of the volume from the egg whites, but fold slowly and carefully. The resulting batter should be evenly mixed and somewhat fluffy in texture.
5. Place half the crust dough into the center of the greased baking dish and use a spatula to carefully and evenly distribute it throughout the bottom of the dish.
6. Par-bake the bottom crust for 10 minutes or until it begins to slightly firm up. While you wait, prepare your filling.
7. To prepare the filling, combine room temperature cream cheese with sweetener and vanilla extract. Stir or whisk well until it is all combined and smooth.
8. Remove the par-baked crust from the oven and allow to cool for about five minutes.
9. Spread the cream cheese mixture evenly over the top of the par-baked crust.
10. Carefully spread the remaining crust mixture over the top of the cream cheese layer. To avoid mixing the cream cheese in with the top crust layer, I recommend applying the top crust in small dollops all over and then smoothing them together as opposed to doing one large dollop in the middle of the dish. This will prevent the cheese from mixing into the top crust.
11. Smooth the top crust and sprinkle it evenly with all of the cinnamon and sweetener mixture.
12. Carefully pour the melted butter over the top, taking care to drizzle it all over so that it doesn’t all settle in one place.
13. Bake the dish on the middle rack for 30-40 minutes or until the top is deep golden brown and caramelized and firm to the touch.
14. Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes before slicing, or let sit over night. The squares are delicious warm or at room temperature.
15. Slice into 12 squares and enjoy.

Nutritional Information

Squares contain 3g net carbs per serving (1/12th of recipe).