Key Lime Cheesecake with a Hazelnut Crust
This key lime cheesecake dessert has a hazelnut crust! It’s the perfect combination of tangy, sweet, creamy, and crunchy. Your brunch guests will be begging you for this recipe!
This isn’t the variety of key lime cheesecake that I normally make. One of the Brunchweek sponsors is Bob’s Red Mill. If you’ve been around this blog before, that name should ring a bell. They’re responsible for the Low-Carb Baking Mix that I’ve used in nearly all of my baked goods lately, and they also make the steel cut oats that I used in my recipe for Carrot Cake Steel Cut Oatmeal.
Anyway, they sent over some hazelnut flour for me to try, and I was so excited about it! Oh, and to make this key lime cheesecake especially sweet, I had help from another sponsor…I used Dixie Crystals sugar!
FOOD FACTS – Hazelnuts and Hazelnut Flour
Origins and Fun Facts
Hazelnuts (also referred to as Filberts) date back to 283 B.C. That’s when, according to a manuscript found in China, the filbert took its place among the five sacred nourishment that God bestowed on human beings.
In the early days, the filbert was used as a medicine and a tonic. More than 1,800 years ago, Greek physician Dioscorides emphasized the properties of the filbert: “It cures chronic coughing if pounded filbert is eaten with honey. Cooked filbert mixed with black pepper cures the cold. If the ointment produced by mashing burnt filbert shells in suet is smeared on the head where hair does not grow due to normal baldness or to some disease, hair will come again.” Oregon grows 98% of hazelnuts produced in the US—but only a fraction of the world’s supply of hazelnuts are grown here; the vast majority of hazelnuts are grown in Turkey, Spain, and Italy.
Nutrition
- Hazelnuts are a healthy source of Vitamin E and monosaturated fat. They’re also a good source of protein, and they’re low in carbohydrates.
- Hazelnuts are naturally gluten-free. (Bob’s Red Mill packages their Hazelnut Meal Flour in a gluten-free facility, too, which makes it safe for gluten-free eating!)
- According to the Bob’s Red Mill website, “Replacing 30% of the flour in your baking with hazelnut meal will add wonderful texture and flavor while reducing the total carbohydrates. This makes it perfect for those following a low carbohydrate or paleo diet.”
CLICK HERE to see nutritional values for hazelnut flour
Please don’t think that I’m a horrible person for making this key lime cheesecake a full fat, calorie loaded dessert. I just figured that Mother’s Day and Sunday brunch are a time to indulge a little bit.
Watching our waist line and calorie counting can happen again tomorrow. Today, I think we should feast on the indulgence!
Key Lime Cheesecake with a Hazelnut Crust
Ingredients
- CRUST
- 6.6 ounces (1.25 cups) hazelnut meal or flour
- 3 ounces (6 Tablespoons) unsalted butter
- 2 ounces (1/4 cup) granulated sugar
- FILLING
- 8 ounces cream cheese softened
- 2.5 ounces (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
- zest of one lime
- juice of one lime
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract (or lemon extract)
- 2 eggs
- whipped cream for garnish
Instructions
- Heat oven to 350 F.
- To a medium bowl, add hazelnut flour, sugar, and melted butter. Use a spoon to stir until combined. Press mixture into the bottom and barely up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan.
- Place into heated oven and bake for 10 minutes. Remove pan from oven and allow crust to cool while you prepare the filling.
- To a large mixing bowl, add cream cheese, sugar, lime zest, lime juice, and extract. Use an electric hand or stand mixer to blend on high speed until mixture is combined and creamy. Add eggs and mix on medium speed, just until combined.
- Pour mixture into crust and bake for 40 minutes, or until center is almost set. Remove from oven and leave pie in springform pan. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Garnish with whipped cream and lime slices or zest before serving.
Nutrition
Hmmm, favorite brunch dish….peanut butter cheesecake…does that count towards brunch?
I’ve read to live by the 80/20 rule eat lean/green/mean 80% of the time so you can indulge 20% of the time.
This lime cheesecake is my Mother’s Day 20%! I don’t care if I have to make it for myself….and Mom of course!!!
This dessert is totally worth doing that 1980’s Billy Blanks workout VHS tape for!!! (I know, I still have those, so embarrassing!)
I’m completely on board with the 80/20 nutrition plan, Laura! Oh, and can I interest you in a DVD swap? Your Billy Blanks for my Richard Simmons 😉
My favorite brunch dish is an omelet with caramelized onions, mushrooms, bacon and lots of gooey cheese.
Gorgeous! I love that this is nice and thin but packed with flavour.
Thanks, Jane 🙂 I was trying for a cheesecake that wouldn’t be so sweet, and I really think I hit the nail on the head.
Yum! I bet that hazelnut crust is perfect with this cheesecake. I’m always looking for different options other than graham cracker.
Thanks, Erin! Yes, the hazelnut crust really took this cheesecake over the top. It’s definitely worth trying some time.
Oh I love Key lime pie, with the hazelnut flavor it must be divine! Good one Becca!
Thanks, Lanie! I was pretty pleased with the results! The hazelnut flour is downright delicious!
Oh, how I love key lime pie! Yours looks amazing, Becca! Who needs all those savory dishes, I’d love to start with this!!!
Thank you so much, Lizzy!
My favorite brunch is quiche, I love all kinds and make all kinds, my husbands is good old fashioned tomato gravy and biscuits, brunch, lunch or dinner
Cheesecake? Did you say cheesecake? And hazelnut?? Swoon….
I adore Key Lime Pie, I’m going to have to look into hazelnut flour and give this version a try.
Now I’m not the biggest fan of key lime. It’s hit or miss for me, but that crust….Omg. I’d flip the pie over and eat the whole bottom 🙂
Haha! I actually think I could handle that. You eat the bottom and I’ll eat the top 😉
OK, I actually did not know until reading this that hazelnuts and filberts were the same thing. Thanks so much for teaching me something new, even if it’s a fact I probably should have known all along 😉
Woot! My work here is done 🙂
Well you know me and my cheesecake 😀 I have a bag of hazelnut flour just begging to be used. Love how you used it in the crust.
You and your cheesecake lovin’ self will probably dig it pretty much the same way I did! DANG, that crust is tasty!
Oh my, this looks so good. I love anything key lime and the hazelnut crust sound divine. Thanks for sharing on Foodie Friends Friday!
Thank you, Michelle!