Quinoa is mixed with coconut and made into cute little bites, and then stuffed with gluten free cheesecake! This healthy dessert is then covered with dark chocolate glaze!
I am really really REALLY excited to share a lot of things with you guys today.
Like, I didn’t-sleep-last-night-so-I’m-tired-and-had-a-shower-of-coffee-this-morning kind of excited.
I wouldn’t recommend that. It doesn’t do much for the whole “getting clean” thing that showers are apparently for.
I also may be a little bit tired because Mr. FFF did something really weird last night. I woke up at 3am and he isn’t in bed beside me where I last saw him. Of course, as a good wife, I was alarmed. So I got up, walked into a few walls (I’m totally blind without contacts) and stumbled into our living room/kitchen area. Lo and behold there was the hubster, sitting at the table eating a bagel and drinking coffee. He looked at me and went “morning babe! Want some breakfast?”
Umm…what? No, I want to sleep. I really don’t understand him sometimes.
Another reason for the tired-ness may be because we also got back from our weekend anniversary Bahamas cruise yesterday! (maybe the hubs got some weird bug on it? I’ll never know.) I’ll be posting some pictures later on this week. It was awesome guys, and so nice to just have 3 uninterrupted days of us time…and I can’t confirm or deny that there were maybe a few conga lines in my weekend. Love. them.
Anyway. The point is that I am mostly tired because I am so excited to share these, with a little sprinkle of who-the-heck-is-my-husband-sometimes-and-I-really-like-cruises? You follow? Good.
Now let’s talk about yum…which is short for healthy-bites-‘o-quinoa-filled-with-creamy-rasperry-cheesecake-and-showered-in-dark-chocolate-deliciousness. Man, why do I treat food better than myself? Dark chocolate showers > coffee showers.
These quinoa bites. I. Love. Them. As in I told myself I would just have 1 when they came out of the oven, because I was also in the middle of preparing dinner.
As in, I may or may not have scrapped whatever it was I was making, and had the entire tray instead.
As in, I don’t even remember what I was making because the only thing that I can picture right now is sliding down a rainbow, scarfing down handfuls of quinoa bites. That probably doesn’t make sense, but it does if you think about it. Sliding down rainbows = really happy. Sliding down rainbows with handfuls of quinoa bites = bliss. You understand.
A few things you gotta know about our small, circle-y friends:
1. They require a little bit of planning if you are going to make the cheesecake filling from the recipe, as it does need to set a few hours
2. If you don’t want to use the cheesecake filling from this recipe, use whatever kind you love. It’s also a great way to use up those extra slices of cheesecake after a dinner party.
Just kidding, who has extra cheesecake slices? Not this girl.
3. They are a leeetle bit tedious and it does take a little bit to get your ball-rollin’ groove on. You might think that the quinoa isn’t going to stick to the cheesecake center but DON’T GIVE UP SISTAH….the magic will happen. Just keep rollin’
Final thought: Umm, chocolate covered. With coconut. AND raspberry cheesecake centers. AND health.
My tummy just smiled.
Ingredients
- For the quinoa:
- 1/2 Cup Quinoa
- 1/2 Cup Water
- 1/2 Cup Unsweetened vanilla almond milk
- 3 Tbsps Baking stevia or sweetener of choice
- Pinch of salt
- 1/4 Cup + 2 Tbsp Unsweetened coconut flakes
- 2 eggs lightly beaten
- For the filling:
- 3 Oz Reduced fat cream cheese softened
- 1/8 tsp Fresh lemon juice
- 2 Tbsps + 2 tsps Splenda or sweetener of choice
- 1 Oz White chocolate 1 square
- 2 Tbsp Raspberry Greek yogurt
- 1 T Liquid egg white
- 3 Tbsps Fresh raspberries
- For the dark chocolate glaze:
- 3 oz Dark chocolate
- 2 tsps Coconut oil melted
Instructions
- Make the cheesecake center:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and place 2 muffin liners in amuffin tin,filling the empty cups with a little bit of water.
- In a large bowl, beat together the softened cream cheese, lemon juice and Splenda until smooth and creamy.
- In a small bowl, melt the chocolate in 20 second intervals in the microwave, stiring between each interval.
- Pour the melted chocolate, Greek yogurt and egg white into the cream cheese mixture and beat until well blended.
- Pour into the 2 lined muffin tins and bake until the cheesecake is set, about 20 mins.
- Let cool in the pan and then refrigerate for at least 5 hours.
- To make the Quinoa:
- Combine the water and almond milk into a large pot* and bring to a boil.
- Once boiling, add in the quinoa, sweetener of choice and pinch of salt. Turn the heat to low, cover and cook until the water is completely absorbed (about 15-20 min.) You're quinoa will be slightly creamier than if you used just water, this is good. Let the quinoa completely cool.
- While the quinoa cools, mash the chilled cheesecakes in a large bowl.
- Add in the 3 Tbsp of fresh raspberries and beat with an electric mixer until well combined.
- Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper and drop the cheesecake filling onto it in teaspoon sized balls. If your filling is a little bit runny, use your fingers to help shape each ball.
- Put the cookie sheet into the freezer until each ball is frozen solid, about 30 minutes.
- Transfer the cooled quinoa into a large mixing bowl and add in the coconut flakes and lightly beaten eggs. Mix well so that the quinoa is evenly coated (I like to use my hands) The quinoa will seem quite "eggy" You need this so that the balls stick together.
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Take 1/2 the frozen cheesecake balls out of the freezer and line another cookie sheet with parchment paper. Keep the remaining half in the freezer until you are ready to use, so they don't thaw out.
- In the palm of your hand, take about a heaping 1/2 Tbsp of the quinoa and drop one of the cheesecake balls on top. Cover with an additional heaping 1/2 Tbsp of the quinoa mixture.
- Really squish and spread the quinoa around the cheesecake until it sticks together and is completely covered ** and place onto the prepared cookie sheet. Do this until all of your quinoa is gone.
- Bake the balls until they feel just set and stick together, about 23-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to let them completely cool.
- To make the chocolate glaze:
- In a large bowl, melt the dark chocolate in the microwave by cooking it for 20 second intervals, stiring between each interval. This will take about 1 - 1.5 minutes.
- Stir in the melted coconut oil until the chocolate is very smooth.
- Once completely cool. roll each quinoa bite around in the chocolate (it gets messy!) and place back onto the parchment lined cookie sheet.
- Refrigerate until the chocolate is nice and hard.
- DEVOUR
Tips & Notes:
* It may seem like the quinoa wont stick to the cheesecake filling at first, but really just keep squishing and compacting and I promise you it will. it's a bit time consuming and tricky, but worth it!
Recipes written and produced on Food Faith Fitness are for informational purposes only.
Want more Quinoa?
Date and Banana Quinoa Breakfast Bake
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Brooke says
Hey girl! Love your little pinterest icons on your pics! Plugin/Widget/I don know what it’s called! Lol! Is it one of those or is a custom part of your site?!
Tate says
Thanks Brooke!
It’s a custom part of my site! Sorry!
Brianne @ Cupcakes & Kale Chips says
OMG, Taylor, love these!!
Taylor Kiser says
Thank you Brianne! They are yum!