Splenda Mint Cheesecake Bars

At my literary club we have quite a few members who are diabetic so we try to offer fruit or a low sugar or sugar substitute refreshment as well as a “regular” choice. This Splenda recipe was served yesterday.

Ingredients
Crust:
2 tablespoons Splenda Sweetener, Granulated
1 1/4 cups of graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup light butter, melted

Filling:
12 ounces reduced fat cream cheese
1/3 cup Splenda Sweetener, Granulated
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon mint extract
2 drops green food color

Chocolate Drizzle
12 squares (1 oz. each) semisweet chocolate

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Spray one 8” x 8” pan with baking spray. Set aside.
3. Mix crust ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix well. Press into prepared pan. Bake 8 minutes or until firm.
4. Mix cream cheese and Splenda together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla, mint extract, and green food coloring; mix well.
5. Pour over prepared crust.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes or until firm.
7. Refrigerate cheesecake bars 2 hours or until chilled and firm. (I refrigerated overnight). Melt chocolate and drizzle over the top. [I melted my chocolate in the microwave, then spooned into a small plastic ziploc bag (which was messy to do), cut off the bottom corner and drizzled. But maybe I should have waited for the chocolate to cool? Because the drizzles hardened almost at once, and then tended to come loose from the surface of the bar when cutting into pieces.]
This was pretty tasty. It did not have the rich creaminess of regular cheesecake obviously. The surface also tended to develop cracks/fissures, but the chocolate covered them pretty well.
Nutritional information (per serving) based on 20 bars per recipe. I cut mine into 16 pieces rather than 20 and even then the portions are pretty small.
Calories: 170  Calories from fat: 100  Fat: 11 grams (saturated 6 g.) Cholesterol: 35 mg  Sodium: 105 mg Carbohydrates: 15 g. Fiber: 1 g. Sugars: 11 g. Protein: 4 g.

I added up the calories from the 4 “missing bars” since I cut 16 rather than 20 bars, and then divided them by 16. The calories climbed to around 212 and the sugar to almost 14 grams.