Keto Eggnog Cheesecake Bars

Where eggnog and cheesecake bars come from

Eggnog is old. Food historians trace it back to posset, a warm, spiced milk drink people sipped in medieval England. Eggs came into it later. Milk and eggs were costly there, so for a long time it was a drink for the well-off. That changed in the American colonies, where plenty of families kept their own chickens and a dairy cow. Fresh eggs and cream were right there, and the drink took off. In 1900, Good Housekeeping wrote about a Christmas-morning eggnog custom in Virginia, and today it’s far more of a holiday habit in the US than it is in England. The one thing that never left the recipe is nutmeg grated over the top.

Cheesecake bars are the easy cousin of a tall cheesecake. You skip the springform pan and press a crust into a square pan, pour the filling over it, bake, chill and cut. Most classic eggnog cheesecake bars use a gingersnap or graham cracker crust and pour store-bought eggnog right into the filling with a scoop of sugar. Some add a spoon of flour to help it set. All of that had to go here.

A keto holiday dessert that waits in the fridge

I cook every recipe in my own kitchen first, and the thing I noticed with this one is how little it asks of you on the day. The bars need a night in the fridge to set. So they get made the evening before, while the rest of the house is busy, and in the morning you lift the whole slab out by the parchment and cut it into 16 squares. That’s one dessert crossed off before the oven is needed for anything else.

That matters in December. If the oven on Christmas day belongs to a roast, like my low carb Christmas beef tenderloin, dessert has to be finished already. These sit covered in the fridge until the plates are cleared. Then you dust them with a little more nutmeg and set them out with the coffee.

They also work for a mixed table. Some people are counting carbs, some are watching their blood sugar, and some just want something sweet. A small square of cheesecake is rich enough for all of them. Nobody needs two pieces to feel like they had dessert, though somebody always takes a second one anyway.

How I made this keto Christmas cheesecake

The crust is blanched almond flour, melted butter, powdered erythritol, a pinch of cinnamon and salt. It presses into the pan like damp sand and bakes for about 10 minutes, just until the edges go golden. It’s sturdier than a cracker crust, and it doesn’t go soft under the filling overnight.

The filling is where the eggnog lives. Two blocks of full-fat cream cheese get beaten smooth with powdered erythritol. Then come two whole eggs plus two extra yolks, half a cup of heavy cream, a full teaspoon and a quarter of nutmeg, a little cinnamon and a tablespoon of alcohol-free vanilla. The extra yolks are what make it taste like custard instead of plain cheesecake. The cream thins it just enough to give that silky, spoon-coating texture eggnog has. There’s no flour in it at all. The eggs set it.

Use powdered sweetener, not granular. It disappears into the cheese and never turns gritty after a night in the fridge. And let everything sit out first. Soft cream cheese and room-temperature eggs and cream mix in without lumps, so you can stir on low and keep the air out. Too much air is what makes a cheesecake puff up and then crack.

Each bar has 3 g net carbs, 6 g protein and 22 g fat, with 231 calories. The total carbs on the card are 11 g because they include the erythritol. For net carbs I subtract the fiber and the erythritol, and the math is written out in the recipe notes.

Because there are eggs in the filling, bake it until it’s truly done. The FDA’s egg safety page says casseroles and other egg dishes need to reach 160°F, so slide an instant-read thermometer into the center before you pull the pan. You want set edges, a center that still wobbles a little if you give the pan a tap, and 160°F (71°C) on the thermometer. It firms up the rest of the way in the fridge.

Swaps that work:

• Powdered allulose instead of powdered erythritol, one for one. It browns faster, so check the bars 5 minutes early.
• Freshly grated nutmeg instead of ground. Use a little less; it’s stronger.
• Unsalted butter in the crust. Add an extra pinch of salt.
• A spoon of unsweetened whipped heavy cream on each bar right before serving. The card numbers don’t include it.