High Protein Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Bites (No Bake)

Pumpkin spice cheesecake bites are no-bake balls of cream cheese, high-protein yogurt and whey, spiced like pumpkin pie and finished with a thin cream cheese icing. The batch makes six, gives you 22g of protein for 280 calories, and needs nothing more than a bowl and an hour and a half in the fridge.

Every autumn the internet goes pumpkin spice and I am, embarrassingly, right there with it. I wanted a small sweet thing to keep in the fridge — the sort you eat one of after dinner, rather than a whole slice of something.

These are essentially cheesecake filling, chilled firm enough to roll. No base, no baking, no water bath, none of the things that make cheesecake a project. The pumpkin spice does the heavy lifting on flavour and the icing makes them look far more effortful than they are.

• Six bites at about 47 calories each, and 22g of protein across the batch
• No baking, no equipment beyond a bowl and a spoon
• They keep 5 days in the fridge and freeze well, so one batch covers a week

Key ingredients

Low-fat cream cheese is the body of these. Going low-fat rather than full-fat is what keeps them light and pushes the protein ratio up — full-fat would nearly double the calories for barely any extra protein. Let it come to room temperature first or it stays lumpy no matter how long you beat it.

High-protein yogurt — Skyr, or a thick Greek — adds tang and protein without loosening the mixture. Use a genuinely thick one. Anything runny and you'll be adding almond flour all afternoon trying to get it to hold a ball.

Whey protein isolate does two jobs: it takes the protein up, and it thickens the mixture as it hydrates, which is much of why these set firm enough to roll. Vanilla or cinnamon suit this best.

Almond flour is the structure. A tablespoon and a half is usually right, but treat it as a dial rather than a fixed amount — if the mixture won't hold its shape after chilling, another half tablespoon fixes it.

Pumpkin pie spice is the whole point. If you don't have a jar, cinnamon with pinches of nutmeg and ginger gets you most of the way there.

Equipment you'll need

• Mixing bowl for the filling
• Hand mixer or whisk to get the cream cheese smooth
• Measuring cups and spoons
• Spatula for folding in the protein and almond flour

A coaching note

Twenty-two grams of protein across the batch means roughly a third of the calories come from protein, which is what makes these more satisfying than a biscuit of the same size. They're still a treat rather than a meal — three of them is not lunch. What they're good for is being the sweet thing that's already made when you want one, which usually beats whatever gets eaten instead at nine in the evening.

If you like a fridge-set sweet thing, my chocolate banana protein bites are the everyday version, and the high protein tres leches cake bites are what I make when people are coming over.

Alex :)