Homemade Gluten-Free Cheesecake Squares
These gluten free cheesecake squares topped with an irresistible wild blueberry topping are a crowd-pleasing dessert everyone will love!
Some of my favorite recipes are simple twists on childhood favorites.
The Flourless Chocolate Chip Cookies I shared yesterday are a perfect example. Sure, they’re all dolled up with ground flax and chia, but basically, they’re just an upgraded version of the yummy 3-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookie I remember making 20 years ago.
That’s the beauty of being unmillennial. I’ve got 40+ years worth of food memories to chose from when it comes to recipe development.
Today’s Gluten Free Cheesecake Squares are also an updated twist on a dessert I remember my grandmother (My OTHER grandmother. Not my Mawmaw Ween, who you heard me talk about on The Elders Episode) making when I was a kid.
My mom’s mom, Lucille, absolutely adored a good dessert. You hardly ever went to her house that she didn’t have some sort of cake or pie she’d cooked up; or if you looked hard enough, a few candy bars — which may actually have been my Pawpaw’s — stashed away in her mushroom-shaped flour canisters. (If you know the ones I’m talking about, you are CLEARLY Unmillennial.)
I remember growing up Lucille would make this really simple “cheesecake-like,” concoction which was, as I recall it, nothing more than crushed vanilla wafers, cream cheese, Cool-Whip and canned cherry pie filling. What the recipe lacked in culinary complexity it more than made up for in yumminess. My mother, Lucille’s oldest daughter, has taken to making another easy variation on that idea for my boys when they visit that opts for a graham cracker crust. They love that no-bake cheesecake pie as much as I recall liking that vanilla wafer cheesecake-ish dessert back then.
Lucille is my only living grandparent and based on recent events, it’s doubtful she will be for much longer. I checked in with my mom the other day to get an update on her. The report was that she’s not really eating much… other than the desserts she’s served each day.
That made me smile. Not that she’s not eating much, of course, but because what she is eating these days is what I’ll always remember about her — that she LOVED a good dessert. She’s changed a lot over the years becoming a bit softer and more vulnerable to those around her. But she’s never changed in her love of a good dessert. That’s definitely a quality we share.
PrintGluten Free Cheesecake Squares
These gluten free cheesecake squares topped with an irresistible wild blueberry topping are a crowd-pleasing dessert everyone will love!
- Yield: 9 squares 1x
- Category: Desserts
Ingredients
- 2 cups frozen wild blueberries
- 6 tablespoons sugar, divided
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 orange, zested and divided
- 2 cups gluten free animal crackers (I used Glutino)
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- 1 (8-ounce) block cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 cup vanilla Greek yogurt (I recommend using a very thick yogurt)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9-inch square baking dish with cooking spray.
- Combine wild blueberries, 3 tablespoons sugar, water and 1/2 of orange zest. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until very thick (sauce will thicken upon standing some, but should be mostly thick enough at this point to spread over bars). Remove from heat and let cool.
- Meanwhile, add animal crackers to a food processor and pulse until crushed into crumbs. Add 1 tablespoon sugar, butter and egg, pulsing until combined. Press mixture into bottom of prepared dish. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.
- Combine cream cheese, Greek yogurt and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar in a bowl. Mix with a hand mixer until smooth. Spread evenly over cooled crust and top with wild blueberry sauce. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving.
Nutrition
- Calories: 237
- Sugar: 15 g
- Sodium: 139 mg
- Fat: 15 g
- Carbohydrates: 21 g
- Fiber: 1.4 g
- Protein: 5 g
All images and recipes on this site are the property of Regan Jones, RDN. Please do not use them for commercial or social media use without my permission.
Before you go, check out these popular Recipes & Podcast Episodes:
- no. 119 – The Optimal Aging and NAD+ Episode
- no. 118 – The Probiotics & Metabolism Episode
- Low Carb Banana Bread
- no. 117 – The Rucking Episode
- Low Carb Fudge Recipe (Salted Peanut Butter Fudge Cups)
All images and recipes on this site are the property of Regan Jones, RDN. Please do not use them for commercial or social media use without my permission.