"Man, I Really Want Some Cheesecake."

The other day I had this conversation with myself, in my head (hopefully not out loud, I was at work after all):

Man, I really want some cheesecake. 
I wonder if I can make cheesecake on my own. 
Cheesecake can’t be thaaat hard, right? 
Isn’t it just like, cream cheese and a couple other things, right? 
You can totally do it. Make a cheesecake. 
Oh, marathon training, eating clean, working out, psh, overrated! 
Make yourself a cheesecake. It’ll be delicious and totally worth it. 
Maybe put in sweet potatoes! 
Why? 
Well, they are delicious for one. 
And healthy. I know, I know, their healthfulness kinda goes out the window once you add butter and sugar and all, but whatever, do it anyway. 

So, after all that, I went to Pinterest and Google and stumbled across this recipe for Sweet Potato Cheesecake Bites.

I know, right? Sounds amazing.

I tweaked the recipe a tad, but here’s what you'll need:

Kitchen utensils: 

• Hand mixer
• Parchment paper
• and 8 x 8 pan 

For the base: 

• 8 Tbsp. butter (1 stick)
• 1 1/2 cups sweet potato puree 
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar 
• 1 cup whole wheat flour 
• 1 egg + 1 egg white (reserve yolk for topping) 
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract 
• 1/2 tsp. salt 

For topping: 

• 1 (8 oz.) package reduced-fat cream cheese 
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract 
• 1 egg yolk 
• 5 Tbsp. light brown sugar

Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees. Then, grease the pan. This next part takes a little finesse. Trim two pieces of baker’s parchment so they can sit flat on the bottom the the pan and so they are long enough to hang over the sides by a few inches. Butter the paper. 

At the grocery store, if you're lucky, you'll be able to find pure sweet potato puree. If you're unlucky like me, you can't find any. In that case grab a couple sweet potatoes from the produce section (literally, like two), peel them, cut them into cubes and boil them. 

You can stop boiling them once they are soft and you can easily stab them with a knife. 

Next, whip them as smooth as you can. Then, take your stick of butter, melt it in the microwave and then mix it with your sweet potatoes. 

Then, use a hand mixer (or a whisk if you're in the market for an arm workout) and add the brown sugar to the mixture. 

Next, add the egg, the egg white, and the vanilla. 

Now add the flour and salt to the mixture. 

Finally, add your sweet potato mixture to your buttered pan. 

The next step is the cheesecake part. 

This is simple. You just blend all the topping ingredients, the cream cheese, the vanilla, the egg yolk, and the sugar. 

(I may have forgotten to take pictures of this. My b.) 

At any rate, take this mixture and spoon 6-8 large dollops of it onto your sweet potato mixture. It doesn't have to be pretty. 

Then, swirl it around and make it pretty. 

Then, pop this into your oven for 30-40 minutes, how ever long it takes for the cheesecake to turn golden brown. Poke it with a toothpick. When it comes out clean, it's good to go. 

Ta-da!!

Give it some time to cool before you use the hanging pieces of parchment paper to life it out and cut it. 

I recommend cutting it into bite-sized pieces. (This recipe makes about 30 pieces). 

Now, I have to admit that these are like 80% sweet potato pie filling and 20% cheesecake-ness but they are still 100% delicious. Really creamy and smooth and comforting. And, not too sweet. They’re more naturally sweet tasting instead of out-of-control, in-your- face, man-you-must-have-dumped-a-lot-of-sugar-in-here sweet. 

In case you’re wondering how much damage these will do to your diet, I Googled some more and calculated the nutritional damage.

But forget about that! Imagine this in your belly.