Keto Chocolate Cheesecake is the ultimate dessert for chocolate lovers. This mouthwatering baked cheesecake has triple the chocolate for triple the fun.
There’s a reason I call this recipe “Death by Chocolate Cheesecake”. Because really, if it’s your time, is there any better way to go than enjoying bite after bite of a luscious, rich dessert?
I always feel so sad for people who say they don’t like cheesecake. As far as I am concerned, they are missing out on one of life’s greatest pleasures. Creamy and dense, keto cheesecake is just this side of heaven.
And when you combine it with chocolate, it’s absolutely mind-blowing. No wonder this low carb dessert recipe is one of my most popular! Along with my classic Keto Chocolate Mousse, it’s one of my favorite desserts too.
Why this is recipe is so awesome
This really is the ultimate keto chocolate cheesecake experience. And I tweaked it recently to make it lighter and lower in carbs, without sacrificing that rich, triple chocolate flavor.
This cake features an easy chocolate crust made with nut flour. It resembles the Oreo crust of conventional cheesecakes, but with a fraction of the carbs. Then comes a creamy filling made with both melted chocolate and cocoa powder, so it’s dense and rich. Then you top the whole cake off with a sugar-free chocolate ganache glaze.
Can you say “heaven on a fork”??? I made it for a recent get together with friends, and everyone kept taking extra little slices here and there. It was more than half gone before I knew it. I did manage to rescue a slice to keep for myself!
Baked cheesecakes like this do take some time and effort. But it’s a worthwhile endeavour for chocolate lovers, I promise. And I walk you through the process step by step, and give you added tips to make it come out perfectly.
Reader reviews
“I’ve made this several times and there’s another in the oven now. This is my favorite cheesecake recipe!” — Cathy J.
“Wow. This cheesecake is amazing so creamy and full of chocolate flavor. The crust was superb. Will be making Again. Thank you.” — Linda
“This is da BOMB when it comes to luscious chocolate yumminess! Easy to make — easier to eat! Thank you, Carolyn, for creating such wonderful recipes and sharing them with anyone. You are a one in a million gem.” — Jeanne B.
Ingredient Notes
- Almond flour: You can really use any nut or seed meal for this crust. This time around, I used some pecan flour I had on hand. You can also make your own sunflower seed flour for a nut-free version.
- Sweetener: You will need several different kinds of sweeteners for this recipe. Please see the Sweetener Options section for a detailed discussion of what to use.
- Cocoa powder: Dutch process cocoa imparts a deeper, richer chocolate flavor.
- Unsweetened chocolate: Do note that this is completely unsweetened chocolate, meaning it doesn’t contain any sweeteners at all. I recommend getting a good brand like Guittard or Ghirardelli, as they are less likely to seize.
- Cream cheese: You really can’t make a cheesecake without it!
- Heavy whipping cream: A little heavy cream smooths out the filling and makes the cheesecake even creamier. You also need it to make the ganache.
- Pantry staples: Butter, eggs, vanilla extract, and salt.
Step-by-step directions
1. Prepare the crust: Whisk together the almond flour, cocoa powder, and sweetener. Stir in the melted butter until well combined. Press mixture firmly into the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan. Bake at 325ºF for 10 to 12 minutes, and then remove and reduce oven temperature to 300ºF.
2. Melt the chocolate: In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the unsweetened chocolate. Stir frequently until smooth, then set aside to let cool.
3. Beat the cream cheese: In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese on medium for 1 to 2 minutes, until super creamy. Beat in the sweetener and vanilla extract, then beat in the melted chocolate. Scrape down the beaters and the sides of the bowl to make sure no clumps of cream cheese remain.
4. Add the eggs: Beat in the eggs one at a time until just barely incorporated. Then beat in the cocoa powder and heavy whipping cream until the mixture becomes smooth. Do not overbeat.
5. Bake the cheesecake: Pour the filling into the pan and gently shake from side to side to even it out. Bake 50 to 60 minutes, or until the filling is mostly set but still jiggles just a little in the center. Remove and let cool to room temperature, then run a sharp knife around the inside of the pan to loosen the sides. Cover tightly and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.
6. Make the ganache: In a medium saucepan over medium heat, bring the cream to just a simmer. Remove from heat and add the chopped chocolate. Let sit 5 minutes to melt, then add the sweetener and vanilla extract and whisk until smooth. Pour over the top of the chilled cheesecake, allowing some to drip down the sides.
Expert tips
Baked cheesecake is a labor of love and the process can be utterly enjoyable. The most important thing is to take your time. Don’t rush any of the steps and read my tips for achieving the creamiest keto chocolate cheesecake!
Use room temperature ingredients. That includes the cream cheese, eggs, and heavy cream. You want them to incorporate easily and if they’re cold, you could end up with lumpy cheesecake batter.
Take the time to beat the cream cheese thoroughly before adding any other ingredients. It should be very creamy after beating it for at least a minute, if not more. This really makes a difference to the cheesecake texture.
Unsweetened chocolate can be finicky and prone to seizing so always melt it over low heat. A little butter or coconut oil also helps thin it out so that it combines better with the cheesecake filling. Make sure you let it cool properly before beating it into the filling.
Don’t over-beat the eggs. You want to beat each one in until just barely incorporated. Overbeating cheesecake filling makes it rise and fall during baking, and then crack as it cools.
Don’t overcook it! Cheesecake should always be taken out before it’s cooked through. It will continue to cook once it’s out of the oven so make sure the center still has a little jiggle to it. Check on it frequently in the last 10 to 15 minutes of baking.
Sweetener Options
What sweeteners you use also makes a difference to this Keto Chocolate Cheesecake. If you want the crust to have some crispness to it, you need an erythritol based sweetener with no allulose in it. You can use the new Swerve Monk Fruit blend, which is just erythritol and monk fruit. Or you can use Lakanto or So Nourished.
The filling is a little more forgiving when it comes to sweeteners. You can use erythritol, allulose, BochaSweet, or a combination. I like the combination of Swerve Granular and Swerve allulose, to help inhibit any recrystallization.
I find that a little allulose actually helps the chocolate ganache stay shiny and soft. So I use mostly Swerve Confectioners with tablespoon of Swerve allulose.
Frequently Asked Questions
As long as you use the right ingredients and the right sweeteners, you can enjoy chocolate cheesecake on a low carb or keto diet. This Death by Chocolate Cheesecake uses nut flour and low carb sweeteners for a delicious keto dessert.
This keto chocolate cheesecake recipe has 7.8g of carbs and 3.2g of fiber per serving. That comes to 4.6g net carbs per slice.
Store the cheesecake in the fridge, tightly wrapped, for up to a week. You can also freeze it for several months. If you plan on making it ahead for a party, I recommend leaving the ganache off until a few hours before you serve it, so it stays glossy.
More amazing cheesecake recipes
Keto Chocolate Cheesecake Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
Crust:
- 1 cup (110 g) almond flour
- 1/4 cup (21.5 g) cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup (45.5 g) Swerve Granular
- 1/4 cup (56.75 g) butter, melted
Filling:
- 3 ounces (85.05 g) unsweetened chocolate, chopped
- 1 tbsp butter
- 24 ounces (680.39 g) cream cheese, softened
- 3/4 cup Swerve Granular, See blog post for more sweetener options
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 1/4 cup (21.5 g) cocoa powder
- 1/3 cup (78.86 ml) heavy whipping cream, room temperature
Topping:
- 1/2 cup (118.29 ml) whipping cream
- 3 tbsp Swerve Confectioners
- 1 tbsp allulose, **See recipe notes
- 2 oz (56.7 g) unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
Crust
- Preheat the oven to 325ºF. In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond flour, cocoa powder, and sweetener. Stir in the melted butter until well combined.
- Press mixture firmly into the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, and then remove and reduce the oven temperature to 300ºF.
Filling
- In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the unsweetened chocolate with the butter. Stir frequently until smooth, then set aside to let cool.
- In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese on medium for 1 to 2 minutes, until super creamy. Beat in the sweetener and vanilla extract, then beat in the melted chocolate. Scrape down the beaters and the sides of the bowl to make sure no clumps of cream cheese remain.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time until just barely incorporated. Then beat in the cocoa powder and heavy whipping cream until the mixture becomes smooth. Do not overbeat.
- Pour the filling into the pan and gently shake from side to side to even it out. Tap lightly on the counter to release any air bubbles. Bake in the center of the oven for 50 to 60 minutes, or until the filling is mostly set but still jiggles just a little in the center.
- Remove and let cool to room temperature, then run a sharp knife around the inside of the pan to loosen the sides. Cover tightly and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.
Topping
- In a medium saucepan over medium heat, bring the cream to just a simmer. Remove from heat and add the chopped chocolate. Let sit 5 minutes to melt, then add the sweetener and vanilla extract and whisk until smooth.
- Pour over the top of the chilled cheesecake, allowing some to drip down the sides. You can also use an offset spatula to cover the sides with some of the ganache.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclaimer
Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I am simply recounting and sharing my own experiences on this blog. Nothing I express here should be taken as medical advice and you should consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. I provide nutritional information for my recipes simply as a courtesy to my readers. It is calculated using MacGourmet software and I remove erythritol from the final carb count and net carb count, as it does not affect my own blood glucose levels. I do my best to be as accurate as possible but you should independently calculate nutritional information on your own before relying on them. I expressly disclaim any and all liability of any kind with respect to any act or omission wholly or in part in reliance on anything contained in this website.
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I’ve made this several times and there’s another in the oven now. This is my favorite cheesecake recipe!
I just want to say that I find swerve sweetener has an aftertaste. Plus it bothers my stomach…..is there another sweetener I can use?
I’d like to know that too. Allulose maybe?
Allulose can work but it will take a very long time to set properly. BochaSweet might be a better option.
oh darn… I just took mine out of the oven and I used allulose… I shall find out right on Thanksgiving…. I’ll keep it home so no one witnesses the mess!
If I were to half this recipe, what size of a spring form pan should I use?
You need to find the area of a 9 inch circle, and figure it out from there. There are some nifty online calculators for that.
This came out delicious! I would only suggest avoiding chocolate chips or other ingredients with stevia. As much as I like stevia in theory, it still has an unpleasant aftertaste. I wish I had stuck to erythritol-sweetened chocolate. Still, I brought this cheesecake to friendsgiving with non-keto friends and fed it to my housemates, who are also non-keto, and everyone liked it!
Would I be able to make this in an 8″ springform pan?
It’s going to be far too deep and take a long time to cook through. You’re better off reducing the whole recipe by 25%.
What a phenomenal rich dessert. I added on top your raspberry filling for your thumbprint cookies, then placed fresh raspberries on top of that on concentric circles. It looked like it came from a fancy patisserie. Thank you so much for all your great recipes.
Stunning!
Could I use Choc zero dark Chocolate chips for
The Cheesecake? Instead of Lily’s?
Thank you for all the great recipes!
Yes, ChocZero chips are great for this too!
Wow. This cheesecake is amazing so creamy and full of chocolate flavor. The crust was superb. Will be making Again. Thank you.
I’m making this for the 3rd time for Christmas dessert.
It’s the first time I’ve read the comments.
In the recipes you call for unsweetened chocolate,
I’ve always used Bakers unsweetened chocolate bar.
But the link you provide in the comments is a chocolate bar that is sweetened. If I was going to go that route I’d use Green + Black, it doesn’t have soy.
So I guess I’ve been making this wrong all this time.
Could you please clarify?
I think you’re getting a bit mixed up… one part of the recipe takes unsweetened chocolate, another take low carb sweetened chocolate… The sweetened is in the cheesecake itself, the unsweetened is the glaze.
Just tried this. You weren’t kidding about the unsweetened vs sugar free chocolate. I missed that somehow. Overall it turned out good. Not bad for my first cheesecake! As a breast cancer survivor I need sugar free low sugar options. We know chocolate makes anything better!
I made the version of this for triple chocolate cheesecake squares that’s in your Keto baking cookbook; same exact ingredients but in smaller proportions for an 8×8 pan. (I was hoping to find that recipe here so that I could tell you how thrilled I am with the recipe!) OMG…one of the best, if not THE best, Keto desserts ever. I want to recommend to other bakers to put some salt on top of the glaze; I used pink Himalayan salt, cracked fresh from a grinder, and it made this dessert even better. I love how salt brings out the chocolate in chocolate. 🙂 Served with fresh raspberries, it was to die for. Thank you!!!
WEll, thanks, Nina!
Could I use milk or semi sweet Lily’s chocolate in place of the dark chocolate?? I don’t have the dark chocolate and the closest store is 45 minutes away. I have all the other ingredients.
Should be fine.
Just made this for my hubbys birthday tomorrow! He is coming home tomorrow after two weeks away, just hope I can resist till then! The bowl scrapings were delicious when I managed to prise the spoon from my 7 year old! It is in the overrn now, looks delicious, cant wait! Thankyou, was easy to put together, I used a mix of 100% chocolate and sugar free milk choc for the filling as I didnt have dark sugar free,
So glad you like it. Early happy birthday to him!
Is it possible to make this without the crust!?
Sure! Great way to save on carbs. Line your pan with a circle of parchment.
This is exceptional. Closet thing to heaven on a fork.
Can you use 6 oz Lily’s dark chocolate chips instead of the bars?
Yes, but they do tend to melt more thickly so you may need to thin them out a bit with cocoa butter or coconut oil.