Banana Pudding Cheesecake
Hubby and I love cheesecake! And when I say love, I mean love. We had cheesecake for our wedding cake. Yep. Sure did, even though some tried to talk us out of it. (We got sheet cake for them). This cheesecake is so amazingly good. It's hard to believe it's free of gluten and corn-lite. You've got to try it!
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups finely crushed maple wafers
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup butter, melted
Maple wafers ~ 15
2 large ripe bananas, diced
2 tablespoons light brown sugar**
3 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese, softened (Organic Valley)*
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons maple syrup/honey/agave
Garnishes:
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 banana, sliced
1/2 cup coarsely crushed maple wafers
1 cup heavy cream
1 TBS sugar
* Potential to be corny. My kids tolerates it, but everybody's tolerance varies. Please use your experiences to determine tolerance. Some highly sensitive individuals report reactions to the packaging.
**Brown sugar - make your own with sugar & blackstrap molasses. For 2 TBS sugar, add 1/2 tsp molasses.
Directions Preheat oven to 350°F. Stir together first 3 ingredients in a small bowl until well blended. Press mixture onto bottom of a parchment paper lined 9-inch springform pan.
Stand 15 or so wafers around buttered edge of pan, pressing gently into crust to secure. Our wafers ran together when baking so we had wafer strips. We made our wafers 2 days ago & forgot to put them away. They ended up being soft & pliable, which turned out in our favor for making the sides of the crust!
Cream together cream cheese & sugars until well blended. Mix in bananas, eggs & liquid sweetener. Pour mixture into prepared crust. Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until center is almost set.
Sprinkle wafer crumble on top. Cool on a wire rack completely. Chill in fridge for 4 hours to finish setting.
While cake chills, make whipped cream by mixing together heavy cream & sugar in mixer. Slice banana & toss in lemon juice. Add dollops of whipped cream to cake & a banana slice inset on each dollop.Dig in & enjoy!
Recipe modified from MyRecipes.