I was in the mood to make a cheesecake for my girl friends birthday, but I wanted to create something amazing that she wouldn’t forget. So I thought why not make a deconstructed strawberry cheesecake. This was actually a lot easier to make then it looks.
Ingredients
- 2 cups crushed graham crackers
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 4 tbsp low fat margerine, melted
- 1 cup fresh strawberries
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 1/4 cup tbls finely chopped dark chocolate
- 1 package of low fat cream cheese, softened
- 4 cups of low fat cool whip (3 used with the cream cheese and 1 cup used for the chocolate whipped topping)
- Chocolate dessert cups
Instructions for Heart Cookies and Crumbs
- Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F).
- Lightly grease a cookie baking sheet (I used my round stone as I don’t need to grease it).
- Mix crushed biscuits and 1 tbsp sugar together in a medium bowl.
- Add butter and stir until well combined.
- Using your hands, spread mixture on the cookie pan and press down as hard as you can.
- Bake until crust is set and golden in places, 15–20 minutes.
- Set crust aside until cool.
- Once cooled use a small heart shape cookie cutter to cut out cookies and set them aside.
- Place the left over crumbs in a bowl. These will be used in the chocolate cup creation.
Instructions for Strawberry Topping
- Place chopped strawberries, lemon juice and 1 tbsp sugar in a small saucepan and cook on medium-low heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
- Stir over heat until mixture starts to thicken, then set aside to cool.
Instructions for Cheese Cake Filling
- Combined the cream cheese and cool whip with an electric mixer.
- Add the chopped up chocolate pieces and stir.
- Place in fridge to cool
Instructions for Chocolate Whipped Topping
- Mix 1 cup of cool whip with a low fat chocolate pudding cup.
- Set in fridge to keep cool.
Instructions to Assemble Your Masterpiece
- Fill the chocolate dessert cup about 1/4 to 1/2 full with the cream cheese mixture.
- Place a layer of the loose gram cracker crumbs on top of the cream cheese.
- Add about a tbls spoon of the strawberry mixture on top of the gram crumbs.
- Finally top the strawberries with the chocolate whipped topping and sprinkle with some shaved chocolate.
- Next to the cup whip some of the chocolate whipped cream on the place.
- slice a large fresh strawberry, fan it out and place on top of the chocolate whip cream.
- Place about a table spoon of the cream cheese mixture in front of the fanned strawberry.
- Place heart cookie next to the cream cheese mixture to help prop it up.
- Sprinkle with shaved chocolate, serve and enjoy.