These Mini Mocha Cheesecakes are simple to make with basic ingredients and no gelatine. They’re sweet and creamy with hints of chocolate and coffee on a nutty base. Naturally sweetened with no added sugar, they’re perfectly bite sized and just right for satisfying after dinner cravings.
Why Make This Recipe?
- They’re a creamy chocolate coffee dessert for one
- They’re a healthier take on cheesecake
- They’re sugar free and low in calories
- You can make them in around 20 minutes
- They set in the fridge and they’ll stay fresh for 7 days
- Makes 12 mini bite sized cheesecakes like these mini lemon cheesecakes and these mini Strawberry cheesecakes
- Goes perfectly with a cup of coffee…. Or tea
- Use as a lunchbox filler, mid afternoon pick me up, or to curb after dinner cravings
If you like the thought of having healthy desserts for one on tap to satisfy after dinner cravings, you might also like these Mini Peanut Butter and Honey Cheesecakes.
Or maybe you just want to make a regular sized Sugar Free Chocolate Cheesecake if you have guests, to take to a BBQ or for a dinner party at home. Alternatively, these Pecan Pie Truffles and Chocolate Sweet Potato Truffles are the perfect no bake hand held transportable dessert.
Ingredients
You’ll need a food processor to make the cheesecake base for this recipe to blitz the walnuts and dates.
No Food Processor?
Yyou could instead use a packet of sugar free digestives or other sugar free cookies, put them in a ziplock bag and pound to a crumb using a can or rolling pin. Mix with a little melted butter until it becomes sticky, then press into your cheesecake molds.
Or you can make these Lemon Cheesecake Balls without a food processor.
Ingredients Notes
- Medjool Dates: the soft, juicy and almost caramel like texture of the medjool dates are perfect for making cheesecake bases. Make sure to remove the seeds from the dates before putting them into the food processor, or alternatively you can buy dates that have already been putted.
- Walnuts: Doesn’t matter if you buy whole walnuts, or the ones that are already crumbled. You can substitute walnuts for pecans also.
- Desicated Coconut: Adds additional sweetener and texture to the base
- Cream Cheese: I left my cream cheese out on the kitchen counter for a couple of hours to come to room temperature before making the filling so that it was pliable enough to work with, without having to use a food processor. I don’t recommend microwaving cream cheese to soften it and this will affect the overall consistency. Letting it soften naturally at room temperature yields the best results.
- Coffee: Any type of coffee is fine. I use Moccona dark roast which has a deep earthy roast. Make sure to dissolve the coffee first otherwise the filling will be bitter and gritty.
- Powdered Sweetener: for the smoothest possible filling, I recommend using a powdered sweetener rather than a granulated sweetener. I used Lakanto powdered sweetener. To make powdered sweetener from granulated, grind it in a mortar and pestle for a minute or so.
- Sugar Free Dark Chocolate: I tend to use a sugar free chocolate bar melted in the microwave for 30 to 50 seconds. If you can’t find sugar free chocolate, you can use 70% or 80% dark Chocolate
Check out my Sugar Free Mini Lime Jelly Cheesecakes for a citrus twist, or my bigger sugar free Lemon and Lime Cheesecake which is perfect for gatherings.
How To Make
Base
- Add the ingredients for base to a food processor and blitz together until mixture resembles a crumb (about a minute or so). When it clumps together in your fingers easily it is ready.
- Remove blade from food processor and use a teaspoon to fill each hole in a 12 hole mini silicone muffin tray. Use damp fingers to firmly press crumbs into base of mold. Add additional crumbs, pressing down into mold so that base is approx. half the mold and there is half left for the filling.
Filling
- Note: If your cream cheese is very soft and pliable you won’t need a food processor to mix the ingredients together (I didn’t use the food processor to make this filling as my cream cheese was at room temp)
- Mix the instant coffee with tap water, stirring to combine in a bowl. Add softened cream cheese and powdered sweetener and thoroughly mix together
- Use a small spoon to add filling onto base, pressing in with back of a spoon to make sure there are no air bubbles. Smooth off the tops with the back of a knife.
- Cover with foil and let them set in the fridge overnight for for 6 to 8 hours
General Tips:
- For the Base: add 1 teaspoon of unsweetened cocoa powder into the base ingredients to give it an extra chocolate hit.
- Leftover base Mixture? If there is any mixture left over from the base that doesn’t fit into the molds. You can roll it into yummy snack balls.
- Storage: Store cheesecakes flat in a single layer in an air tight container for upto 7 days in the fridge
- Alternative Sweeteners: I used granulated monkfruit for this recipe – the one that is superfine and similar to caster sugar consistency so it blended in really easily. You could also use regular granulated sweetener ground in a mortar and pestle, honey or maple syrup in the same quantities.
- Low Fat versus Full Fat Cream Cheese: This recipe works perfectly well with either low fat (light) cream cheese or full fat cream cheese. If looking to keep calories lower, go for the lighter/low fat version. Honestly, I couldn’t really tell that much difference between them and because they are small bite sized, my preference is to use low fat cream cheese to keep them as low calorie as possible.
Decorating Tips
- When to decorate: Its much easier to decorate the cheesecakes once they are out of the silicone molds. That way the chocolate will fall down the sides as well as on top
- Chocolate: Melt chocolate in a microwave safe bowl until only just melted (no boiling or overly hot)
- Drizzling: Use a teaspoon held at about 30 cm/1 foot height to drizzle chocolate lines in a zig zag pattern back and forth
- Chocolate Chips: Add 3 or 4 sugar free chocolate chips on each mini cheesecake, or chop the rest of the chocolate bar into tiny pieces and sprinkle on top.
3 ways to make these without using a muffin tray
- Muffin Papers: Use mini muffin papers instead. These are in the baking aisle at the supermarket and I find using two liners works best. When the cheesecakes are set, the papers peel right off.
- Shot Glasses: Using shot glasses also works to create a bit sized dessert with the base crumbled on the bottom and the filling on top with a drizzle of chocolate and chocolate chips.
- Cake Tin: Use a small square or rectangle tin lined with baking/parchment paper on bottom and sides. Press cheesecake base firmly into tin, and spread cheesecake filling on top. Refrigerate for 6 hours, remove from the tin and cut into 12 even slices.
These mini mocha cheesecakes are so versatile and can easily be made to have either more chocolate, more coffee, or an equal balance of each for that perfectly blended mocha flavour.
Easy to make on a Sunday afternoon so you have something healthy on hand to satisfy those after dinner cravings mid week. Looking for low carb? Check out my Chilli Chocolate Cheesecake for something different.
Mini Mocha Cheesecakes
These Mini Mocha Cheesecakes are simple to make with basic ingredients and no gelatine. They’re sweet and creamy with hints of chocolate and coffee on a nutty base.
Ingredients
Base
- 6 Medjool Dates - Pitted (Room Temperature)
- ½ cup Chopped Walnuts
- 1 tablespoon Peanut Butter
- 1 tablespoon Desicated Coconut
Filling
- ½ cup Cream cheese
- 2 tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
- 1 teaspoon Instant coffee
- 1 tablespoon Water
- 1 tablespoon Powdered Sweetener
Toppings
- 3 tablespoons Sugar Free Dark Chocolate - Melted
- 2 tablespoons Sugar Free Chocolate Chips
Instructions
Base
- Add the ingredients for base to a food processor and blitz together until mixture resembles a crumb (about a minute or so). When it clumps together in your fingers easily it is ready.
- Remove blade from food processor and use a teaspoon to fill each hole in a 12 hole mini silicone muffin tray. Use damp fingers to firmly press crumbs into base of mold. Add additional crumbs, pressing down into mold so that base is approx. half the mold and there is half left for the filling
- If there is any mixture left over from the base that doesn’t fit into the molds. You can roll it into yummy snack balls.
Filling
- If your cream cheese is verry soft and pliable you won’t need a food processor to mix the ingredients together (I didn’t use the food processor to make this filling as my cream cheese was at room temp)
- Mix the instant coffee with tap water, stirring to combine in a bowl. Add softened cream cheese and powdered sweetener and thoroughly mix together
- Use a small spoon to add filling onto base, pressing in with back of a spoon to make sure there are no air bubbles. Smooth off the tops with the back of a knife.
- Cover with foil and let them set in the fridge overnight for for 6 to 8 hours
Removing from Molds
- Use a butter knife to go around the edge of the mold of each cheesecake to loosen, cleaning the knife in between each one. Then gently use knife to lift each cheesecake out onto a plate for decorating
Decorating
- Don’t attempt to add the toppings until the cheesecakes have set properly otherwise the filling will still be too soft.
- Melt chocolate in a microwave safe bowl until only just melted (no boiling or overly hot)
- Use a teaspoon held at about 30 cm/1 foot height to drizzle chocolate lines in a zig zag pattern back and forth
- Add 3 or 4 sugar free chocolate chips on each mini cheesecake, or chop the rest of the chocolate bar into tiny pieces and sprinkle on top.
Storage
- Store cheesecakes flat in a single layer in an air tight container for upto 5 days in the fridge
Notes
- Medjool Dates: the soft, juicy and almost caramel like texture of the medjool dates are perfect for making cheesecake bases. Make sure to remove the seeds from the dates before putting them into the food processor, or alternatively you can buy dates that have already been putted.
- Walnuts: Doesn’t matter if you buy whole walnuts, or the ones that are already crumbled. You can substitute walnuts for pecans also.
- Desicated Coconut: Adds additional sweetener and texture to the base
- Cream Cheese: I left my cream cheese out on the kitchen counter for a couple of hours to come to room temperature before making the filling so that it was pliable enough to work with, without having to use a food processor. I don’t recommend microwaving cream cheese to soften it and this will affect the overall consistency. Letting it soften naturally at room temperature yields the best results.
- Coffee: Any type of coffee is fine. I use Moccona dark roast which has a deep earthy roast. Make sure to dissolve the coffee first otherwise the filling will be bitter and gritty.
- Powdered Sweetener: for the smoothest possible filling, I recommend using a powdered sweetener rather than a granulated sweetener. I used Lakanto powdered sweetener. To make powdered sweetener from granulated, grind it in a mortar and pestle for a minute or so.
- Sugar Free Dark Chocolate: I tend to use a sugar free chocolate bar melted in the microwave for 30 to 50 seconds. If you can’t find sugar free chocolate, you can use 70% or 80% dark Chocolate
- Chocolate Chips on top: I use sugar free chocolate chips that I buy from Woolworths (in the baking aisle). Alternatively you could use bard chocolate chops or a chopped up sugar free chocolate bar to sprinkle on top.
Nutrition
Calories: 136kcalCarbohydrates: 12gProtein: 2gFat: 10gSaturated Fat: 5gFiber: 1gSugar: 4g
Note: Sugars contained in this recipe are from naturally occurring sugars in fruits, vegetables or other natural sweeteners.
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