Desserts you can eat a bowl of

Most low-calorie baking fails because it fixes the recipe instead of the ingredients. Banana bread is roughly 3 calories per gram no matter what you swap into it, so a lighter version is still one small slice you want three of.

The number that decides everything is energy density. Under 1 calorie per gram, portion size stops mattering. These two clear that bar, and one of them is mostly protein.

Greek yogurt cheesecake

A set custard, not New York cheesecake. Tangy and light rather than rich, because there is no cream cheese and almost no fat.

71 cal / 100g
495 cal per pan
63g protein
Quarter pan = 124 cal

Ingredients

Ingredient	Weight	Volume
0% Greek yogurt	500 g	2¼ cups, or one 17.6 oz tub
Large eggs	—	2
Allulose	40 g	3 tbsp
Cornstarch	15 g	2 tbsp
Vanilla	—	1 tsp
Lemon zest	—	1 lemon
Salt	—	¼ tsp

The yogurt is 70% of the mass and the only measurement worth being precise about. Everything else has slack. Allulose is 70% as sweet as sugar, so go to 4 tbsp if 3 tastes flat.

Method

Strain the yogurt if it is watery. Coffee filter or cheesecloth, an hour in the fridge. Thick Greek yogurt can skip this; most store brands cannot. Biggest single lever on the result.
Whisk the eggs, allulose, vanilla, zest and salt until smooth.
Fold in the yogurt gently. Do not whip. Whipped air makes it rise like a souffle and then collapse and crack.
Sift in the cornstarch and fold until just combined.
Bake at 300°F for 45 to 50 minutes in a parchment-lined 7-inch springform or a loaf pan. Pull it when the edges are set and the center still wobbles like jelly.
Turn the oven off, crack the door, leave it 30 minutes. Then chill at least 4 hours, ideally overnight.

Do not eat it warm. It is soft and disappointing out of the oven and a completely different food after a night in the fridge. Judging it before it is cold is the mistake almost everyone makes.

Keeps five days. Double it in a 9-inch pan to last a week.

Half-tub batch, 400g yogurt

380 cal, 53g protein, about 505g baked. The density barely moves: 75 cal per 100g, and a quarter is 95 cal.

Ingredient	Weight	Volume
0% Greek yogurt	400 g	1¾ cups
Large eggs	—	2, do not scale down
Allulose	32 g	2½ tbsp
Cornstarch	12 g	1½ tbsp
Vanilla	—	1 tsp
Lemon zest	—	1 lemon
Salt	—	¼ tsp

Keeping both eggs is deliberate. It raises the egg-to-yogurt ratio about 25%, which is what you want at a smaller volume and doubly so if the starch is light or missing. A single tablespoon of cornstarch is enough here for the same reason.

Use a 6-inch springform or a small loaf pan, since a 7-inch makes it thin and it overbakes. Start checking at 35 minutes rather than 45, at the same 300°F.

Roasted plums

The topping for the cheesecake, and a dessert on its own. Roasting concentrates them into something jammy and far more intense than raw fruit.

46 cal / 100g
A full pound is 210 cal

Halve and pit the plums, lay them cut side up on parchment, scatter over allulose and a pinch of cinnamon or a splash of vanilla. Roast at 400°F for 20 to 25 minutes. That is the entire recipe.

Worth knowing

A splash of balsamic before roasting makes them read as less sweet and more like a real dessert.
Roast the whole haul at once and keep it in a jar. It lasts a week and turns plain yogurt into dessert in ten seconds.
Do not let them dry out and do not substitute prunes. Dried plums are 240 cal per 100g, five times fresh.

Going deeper

No cornstarch? Three options, ranked

Cornstarch is not structural here. The eggs set the cake; the starch binds free water so it does not weep after a day or two, widens the margin before the yogurt curdles, and makes it sliceable rather than spoonable. It costs 55 calories for the whole pan.

Strain 2+ hours and add a third egg. Better than the original recipe, not a fallback. The eggs are the real setting agent, so this does the job directly. Pan goes to about 565 cal and 69g protein.
Just strain and change nothing else. Softer and more custardy. Fine inside two or three days.
Flour, 25g or 3 tbsp, sifted. Works, but flour is about half as strong as cornstarch so it takes double, and at that ratio it can read faintly pasty. Classic cheesecake uses flour and gets away with it because cream cheese and a cup of sugar cover for it. This recipe has neither.

Potato starch, tapioca and arrowroot all substitute 1:1 for the cornstarch.

When it goes wrong Five symptoms and their causes

Symptom	Cause
Grainy or curdled	Oven too hot. Drop it 25°F. Yogurt breaks above about 315°F.
Watery, weeping	Did not strain, skipped the starch, or overbaked.
Cracked top	Too hot, air whipped in, or cooled too fast.
Rubbery	Overbaked.
Bland	Under-salted. With no fat to carry flavor, salt and acid do all the work. The zest is not optional.

Three upgrades worth the calories

Two tablespoons of real cream cheese. 100 calories for the pan, 14 per slice. Disproportionate payoff and the best trade on this page.
A browned top. Crank to 425°F for the last six to eight minutes. Watch it closely, since allulose browns faster than sugar.
Roasted plums on top. This is what turns it from a healthy thing into an actual dessert.

Skip protein powder. Whey pushes the pan to about 88g of protein but turns it rubbery and dry. Casein blends in without the penalty if you already have some.

Why allulose and not stevia or erythritol

Allulose is a rare sugar, about 0.4 calories per gram against sugar's 4. Your body absorbs it but cannot metabolize it, so it leaves mostly unchanged. It is not artificial and not a sugar alcohol. The "0 calories" on the bag is a labeling rule, not literal: anything under 5 calories per serving rounds to zero.

The reason to use it specifically: it browns and caramelizes. Stevia and erythritol do not. That is the whole reason roasted fruit and baked custards work with it and taste like dessert instead of like diet food.

It is 70% as sweet as sugar, so use about 1.3 times what a recipe asks for.
It browns faster than sugar. Drop the oven about 25°F on anything baked.
No blood sugar spike and no cooling aftertaste.
There is a real GI limit, roughly 0.4g per kg of bodyweight in one sitting. Fine spread across a batch, not fine in one enormous bowl.
Not for meringue. It does not crystallize hard, so meringues come out chewy and weep syrup. Use real sugar there.

Safety looks solid and there are modest positive signals on post-meal glucose, but widespread use is only about a decade old and long-term data is thin. It is not a health food. It is a nearly free replacement for something that is actively bad.

Four more that clear the density bar Untested, ranked

Dessert	Density	Note
Angel food cake	70–95 cal/slice	The only real cake that is mostly air, and it has no fat at all. Egg whites, cream of tartar, cake flour, sugar half-swapped for allulose.
Pavlova	~20 cal each	Four egg whites is 68 calories total and bakes into an enormous amount of food. Use real sugar here.
Crustless pumpkin custard	~50 cal/100g	Canned pumpkin is 26 cal per 100g. Pumpkin, eggs, sweetener and pie spice, baked in ramekins.
Baked apples	~95 cal each	Core, cinnamon, vanilla, 375°F for 30 minutes. Effectively unlimited.