Skinny 175cal Chocolate Espresso Cheesecake

I made my fav cheesecake lower in fat and sugar.


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Crust:
1 TBS dark cocoa powder of good quality
200g of bran flakes
3 TBS olive oil
1/3 very finely chopped hazelnuts

Cremé:

500g reduced-fat Neufchâtel or cream cheese
250g of fromage blanc or low fat cottage
2 TBS espresso powder (or any instant coffee like Nescafé)
2 TBS good quality cocoa
1/4 tsp hazelnut essence
TBS maizena (also called corn flour or corn starch)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs room temp
2/3cup agave nectar
good pinch of salt

Position a rack in the center of your oven. Preheat the oven to 325F or 170C.
Remove the eggs from the fridge, so they get up to room temp while you make the crust.
Crush your bran flakes into a crumbs with a rolling pin or just mix everything in a robocoupe like I do.
Add the remaining ingredients.
Lightly grease your springform pan, then line with a circle of parchment on the bottom and a collar around the sides.
Press the cookie mixture into the pan.
I even use my mini rolling pin to get it very even.
Place in fridge to cool.
Disolve half of the espresso powder in 1 TBS hot water; set the other aside.
Cream the eggs, sugar with the cream cheese.
Scrap down the bowl several times so there is no lumps.
And slowly add in the remaining ingredients. No need to add one egg at a time, I tried this and it made no difference I think.
Pour the batter into the springform pan.
Tap against the countertop to get out the air bubbles.
Bake on a sheet pan.
Check on after 45m, but usually for me takes about 55m - but this depends on your oven.

trick-
- To make this even diet friendlly, I use fromage blanc here in France which is a low fat cheese but elsewhere you can use low fat cottage cheese. Outside Algeria use a greek yoghurt, ricotta or low fat cream cheese Neutafel but not no fat since it is not that much lower in calories but it lacks flavour.

- If you use regular yoghurt, use 3 cups then strain in cheesecloth for a few hours.

- You can also make it crustless, even less caloric.

- You can use egg whites instead of whole eggs. I am not for using fake products like Egg beaters so I will not recommend this.

- You can use Special K flakes or Melba toast (unsalted kind)or even tea or digestive biscuits if you like. But the calorie count will be different.

I made a quick calorie calcualtion and this is about 175calories per slice with one cheesecake having 16 slices. If you use sugar, date sugar, Splenda or stevia the calories will be different. Comparing to traditional cheesecake having around 700 calories per slice this isn't that bad as an ocassionaql trea!