I love a good dessert. In fact, I have a horrible sweet tooth. And unfortunately, I've had to cut down on the sugar for the benefit of my health. Both my parents are diabetic and diabetes runs common in my family. In fact, diabetes is common in a lot of Filipinos, with about 1 in 14 adults diagnosed in 2021. So, safe to say I'm pretty high risk and have started preventative measures. 

That being said, a lot of my lifestyle changes in diet includes avoiding foods high in sugar and prioritizing high protein meals. To be honest, the transition wasn't too hard; I didn't have to compromise much on my diet, and my body started getting used to not having sugar as often. Regardless, I still enjoy a sweet treat every now and then. My favourite desserts are cake - and most especially, cheesecake. 

So, imagine my excitement when I came across a handful of healthy, low sugar, high-protein desserts on TikTok. A lot of these desserts were fairly simple to make, with common ingredients found in the kitchen.

I also noticed that a lot of these recipes involved the same ingredients:

• Bananas: an excellent source of fibre and potassium, great for digestion and immune health
• Greek Yogurt: which is high in protein and calcium, yet low in sugar
• Peanut Butter: composed of oleic acid and contains omega-6 fatty acid, which helps maintain cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure
• Oats: which are full of fibre and antioxidants
• Protein Powder: a high-protein supplement 

After months of having these recipes saved, I've finally decided to try some of them out! In this blog, I'll be trying out two healthy dessert recipes I found on TikTok: a 3-Ingredient Basque Cheesecake and a Chocolate Chip Baked Oatmeal. I'll then be going over how these recipes came out and my honest review of them.

3-Ingredient Basque Cheesecake

As I mentioned earlier, cheesecake is probably my favourite dessert. It's rich, creamy, and the toppings are endless. I've never had a bad slice. Unfortunately, because it's primarily composed of cream cheese, cheesecake is a very heavy and fatty dessert. 

Basque Cheesecake is an especially tasty variant to traditionally known forms of cheesecake. Originating from Spain, Basque Cheesecake is crustless, purposely "burnt" to get that iconic, all-round caramelization, and doesn't come with toppings. The first time I had Basque Cheesecake, I almost finished the whole cake!

I got this cheesecake recipe from @ice.karimcooks on TikTok.

Watch the full video for their Healthier 3-Ingredient Basque Cheesecake recipe here. 

@ice.karimcooks This Healthier 3-ingredient Basque Cheesecake will blow you away! 😍 IB: @THEMODERNNONNA 592 cal |58g P | 53g C | 6g F #icekarim #easyrecipes #healthyrecipes ♬ Kanye West - C10

According to Karim, a whole cheesecake contains 58g of protein, 6g of fat, and is 592 calories in total. Since the recipe only contains three ingredients, prep time is less than 5 minutes, but the cake takes about 50-70 minutes to bake. Serves 6-8 slices of cheesecake.

Ingredients

• 1½ cups of vanilla Greek yogurt 
• For this recipe, I used 5% Liberté Vanilla Bean Greek Yogurt 
• 4 eggs
• 5 tablespoons of cornstarch

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F
2. In a bowl, whisk your Greek yogurt and eggs
3. Once all your wet ingredients are evenly combined, slowly add in your cornstarch and whisk again thoroughly
4. Line a baking pan with parchment paper and slowly pour in your batter (I used a 9"x5" pan)
5. When your oven is ready, place your batter into the oven and bake for about 50-60 minutes
6. Once your cheesecake is done, let it cool for about 10 minutes before serving

Results

Coming out of the oven, this cheesecake smelled incredible. However, right off the bat, I was concerned of the colour: my cheesecake didn't caramelized on top the way Karim's did in their video. Once the 60 minutes was up on my timer, I kept my cheesecake in the oven for another 10 minutes, in hopes of getting the top to caramelize, but after being in the oven for 70 minutes, I decided to take it out to cool.

Once the cheesecake has cooled, it was soft to the touch, but firm. In the oven, it almost looked like a spongecake, but deflated when I took it out (which isn't uncommon for basque cheesecake). I was a little sad the top wasn't caramelized, but I didn't want to risk over-baking it in the oven. The sides of the cheesecake, however, had a beautiful colour. 

On it's own, the cheesecake was very eggy - you can even see how yellow it was. You can taste the vanilla from the Greek yogurt, the texture was nice and fluffy, and it was baked perfectly, but the eggs were pretty overwhelming. It was almost like I was eating a quiche.

Karim topped this cheesecake with berries and chocolate. I, unfortunately, did not have fresh fruit in my kitchen (besides bananas), so I topped this cheesecake with a Biscoff Cookie Butter drizzle and almond granola. The toppings really helped mask the eggy flavour of the cheesecake.

If I made this recipe again, I would probably add salt and vanilla to the batter, and maybe dust the top of the cheesecake with some powdered sugar - to try and mask the egg flavour. I would also want to use a vanilla protein powder, instead of the cornstarch, to add extra protein, but I'm not sure if using it would change the texture of the cheesecake. Overall, a solid recipe. I'd make it again.

Chocolate Chip Baked Oatmeal

One of the main tools for this recipe was a blender. Thank god I have a Magic Bullet, because it would've been harder to make the batter otherwise. 

This recipe doesn't have flour, so I suspect the the pulverized oats and protein powder was an alternative powdered binder. 

I got this recipe from @alicelovesbreakfast on TikTok.

Watch the full video for their Chocolate Chip Baked Oatmeal recipe here. 

@alicelovesbreakfast CHOCOLATE CHIP BAKED OATMEAL This is day 2 of my new series PROTEIN POWERHOUSES 💪🏻 where I will be sharing a new high protein breakfast using different protein sources for 100 days, to show you that breakfast doesn’t have to be boring or repetitive. Day 2 is this delicious chocolate chip baked oatmeal. This recipe makes 1 serving and contains 24 grams of protein*. Make sure to save this recipe and come back tomorrow for day 3. *exact protein value will depend on the type of protein powder and milk that you use. INGREDIENTS 👩🏻‍🍳 ➡️ 1/2 cup oats ➡️ 1 ripe banana ➡️ 1 egg ➡️ 1/4 cup milk (I used soy) ➡️ 1/4 tsp baking powder ➡️ 1/2 scoop protein powder Toppings ➡️ handful dark choc chips Method 1. Preheat the oven to 180oc 2. Add all ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth 3. Pour into an oven safe dish and top with chocolate chips 4. Bake for 20-25 minutes #cookieoats #chocolateoats #chocolate #healthybreakfast #breakfastidea #Highproteinbreakfast ♬ Belong Together (Sped Up) - Mark Ambor

As Alice mentions in the caption, the amount of protein in this recipe depends on the protein powder. According to my calculations, the following recipe is about 21g of protein, 8.3g of fat, and about 260 calories (more or less depending on how much chocolate chips you use). Because you're blending all the ingredients, prep takes less than 5 minutes, and the bake time is about 20-25 minutes. Serves 1-2.

Ingredients

• ½ cup of oats
• 1 banana
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup of milk
• Alice used soy milk, I used oat milk
• ¼ teaspoon of baking powder
• ½ a scoop of protein powder
• I used 26g (about 2 tablespoons) of Vega Plant-Based Protein Powder
• Dark Chocolate Chips 

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 180°C (about 350°F - 356°F)
2. Add in the oats, banana, egg, milk, baking powder, and protein powder into your blender and blend until smooth. 
3. Pour your batter into an oven-safe dish. I sprayed butter-flavoured PAM into a small muffin tray and poured the batter about ¾ from the top, it filled 4 cups.
4. Before putting your batter into the oven, top it off with some chocolate chips. I also put a couple thin slices of banana on half of the muffins I prepared 
5. Bake for about 20-25 minutes and let cool for 10 minutes before serving

Results

These muffins came out very interesting.

I didn't have as small a baking pan as Alice, so I used a muffin pan. The muffins were fairly dense, they didn't rise, and they didn't brown like Alice's.

The texture was comparable to bread pudding - it was dense, yet soft. I also might have burnt the muffins a bit: since I used muffin trays and divided the batter, I thought the bake time would've been shorter than the original recipe. But, since I didn't see the muffins brown, I kept them in longer than I'd like, in hopes of them getting darker. I ended up baking them as long as the original recipe - so about 20 minutes. The muffins also deflated when I took them out of the oven.

Despite this, they came out pretty tasty. This recipe didn't have any sugar, and it didn't need it because of the sweetness from the banana and the dark chocolate chips. I also really loved the muffins topped with banana slices - they caramelized beautifully in the oven and added more sweetness.

Thoughts

I was surprised at how these recipes turned out.

More often than not, baked good recipes I find on the internet never turn out as good as I'd expected. Baking is a science, and unlike cooking, there isn't much leniency with the measurements, the bake time, or the heat. 

Left: My rendition of the 3-Ingredient Basque Cheesecake; Right: My rendition of the Chocolate Chip Baked Oats

Between the two recipes, I thought I'd enjoy the basque cheesecake more than the chocolate chip baked oats, however, it was the other way around. I loved how the texture of the basque cheesecake turned out, but I couldn't get over how eggy the flavour was; I wasn't a fan of the texture of the chocolate chip baked oatmeal, but it tasted great. Ultimately, flavour triumphed over texture in these baked goods. 

I followed the recipes as closely as I could, but I MAY have been to blame for these baked goods not turning out the exact same way as the original creators' 😅

Left: @alicelovesbreakfast original Chocolate Chip Baked Oatmeal recipe; Right: my rendition of Alice's recipe

For one thing, because these recipes baked at the same temperature, I baked them in the oven at the same time. However, these recipes had different cook times, meaning I did open the oven door a couple of times to check on how they were doing. Opening the oven door while something is baking interrupts the bake, which could be the reason why the texture of the muffins were weird and didn't rise properly, and why both dishes didn't brown properly.

The type of oats used in the chocolate chip baked oatmeal also could have affected the outcome of the muffin's textures. In addition, the type of protein powder may have affected the texture of the muffins. I don't know what protein powder @alicelovesbreakfast used, but I used a plant-based protein powder. I wonder if using a whey protein powder could contribute to the texture.

Left: @ice.karimcooks original 3-Ingredient Bask Cheesecake; Right: my rendition of Karim's recipe

The basque cheesecake is another story. The texture was great, the flavour wasn't. The preparation was near perfect, it was the fact that there was 4 whole eggs that affected the flavour. As I mentioned earlier, if I were to make this recipe again, I'd add salt and vanilla, probably dust it with powdered sugar, to mask the eggs. Reducing the amount of eggs would definitely help with the taste, but it would be risking the structure of the cheesecake. 

All in all, both recipes had their pros and cons, with their pros definitely outweighing the cons. From what I made, both recipes have so much potential - I'd only make a couple tweaks, but the foundation for both recipes were solid.