Homemade cheesecake
Homemade Tofutti-based lemon, coconut cheesecake
It was my MIL’s birthday this weekend, so I decided it would be nice to make some sort of cake. Cheesecake has been on the list for quite some time and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try out a recipe.
I decided to base this one on my Mum’s cheesecake recipe, but veganised. My mum always made hers with Philadelphia cream cheese and thick cream and it is consistently a hit at parties, being rich and thick — the way I think a cheesecake should be.
When it comes to vegan cheesecakes, I’ve had a few good ones. One was at Mister Nice Guys (you can see it here) in Melbourne, while another was at Green Gourmet in Sydney’s Newtown, which was a raw offering.
Effectively, cheesecakes should involve three main components. The base, the “cheese” and the topping. Many of the aspects of the base and the topping can change, but the “cheese”, give or take the flavour, should utilize the same technique. The cheese part of the cheesecake is, in my mind, the best bit. It needs to be thick, creamy and smooth. The base needs to be a little crumbly, but it should hold its own and come in a proper slice. The topping, depending on what you’re doing with it, should be even across the cheesecake.
This recipe is, on the whole, supremely easy and just involves mixing. My amounts are in no way checked (I go by taste for most things), so I recommend trying as you go to get the right flavour. The only tricky bit was doing the topping, as it does involve a setting agent.
Base:
Packet of gluten free, vegan arrowroot biscuits (crushed up)
Nuttelex butter (melted)
Mix the crushed biscuits and the melted butter together and press it into the base of your cake tin. Put it in the freezer for half an hour. You could make your own biscuits if it suited you, or use a different type (I was tempted to use vegan shortbread or Anzac cookies, as it is Australia day weekend). My mum always used to use chocolate chip. Anything will work — just give some consideration to your overall end of day flavour. “Cheese”:
Two tubs of Tofutti cream cheese (you can see my review here — the first I ever did)
Half a tin of coconut cream
Two cups of icing sugar
Four tablespoons lemon juice
Mix all of the ingredients together as thorough as possible. Spoon evenly onto your frozen base and put into the fridge for an hour. It needs to be quite thick, and not runny, even before putting it into the fridge.
Now, I chose Tofutti as it has that processed stark white look that I really love in a cheesecake. I want it to be gleaming white. You can make your own cashew-based cheese for this (and I encourage it if you have time), but it may not be as white in appearance as you may want aesthetically. It will also take more time and you may have to play with the other ingredients to get it where you want it to be texture-wise. You could pretty much use any vegan neutral-to-sweet flavoured cream cheese… except, maybe, the Kingland one (because yuck).
Topping:
Two frozen bananas
Lychees from a tin
Tinned mandarin segments
Lemon juice
Two teaspoons Vegeset (or agar agar)
Blend all of the topping ingredients, apart from the Vegeset, in an industrial blender on high until smooth. Pour into a pan over a high heat, add the Vegeset and whisk until it boils for one minute. Turn it off and immediately pour over the cheese part of the cheesecake. Put it into the fridge and allow to set.
You can do this with a runnier/syrupy topping instead if you like. It might not look as beautiful, but it saves the step of heating and setting. It could be served in small separate jugs to be poured on as your guests would like.
Serve with fruit and sauces as desired.
I had ours with a vegan chocolate liquor sauce just piped into some lines.
I also had some fresh lychees and mandarin as I wanted to incorporate the flavours from the overall ingredients into how the plate looked (including some un-peeled lychees for colour).
It was a big hit with the family — who put it as slightly lighter in feeling than a traditional non-vegan cheesecake, teetering on a line slightly towards a meringue flavour. I think the flavours with the topping were a little like an intense creamy yoghurt. It’s a hard one to explain. But it was good regardless.
Plating is something I’ve become increasingly interested in. I’m not quite rich enough to be a regular fine diner, so I make do with prettyifying my home dishes where possible and watching beautiful food. I do believe that food should be beautiful, or interesting, to look at. Eating is an experience — and cheesecake is so easy to make look beautiful.
In this instance I went for incredibly generous “square slices” of cheesecake, rather than a traditional round individual portion or cake style slice. I prefer this type of look and I think it’s a lot easier to achieve. My cake pan was too large for the ingredients, and all that I had available was a ceramic baking dish from S&P, so that’s what I made do with.
My next idea is to do a cheesecake in little espresso cups (I just bought four new beautiful ones from the OXFAM shop that are perfect little individual cheesecake sizes) with a coffee syrup or topping. Wifey would like me to do a raspberry one first.
The price
All up, it’s not a cheap venture. If you make the cream cheese yourself then you may be able to shave a few dollars off. If you went to a café or restaurant to order a big slice of vegan cheesecake, you’d end up worse off and it doesn’t always taste that good. So I’m pretty comfortable in recommending this price-wise. There were probably about six big helpings in total — I’d recommend eating maybe half of the slices we did, so you might even feed eight serves on the recipe.
The nutritional value
Yeah, so this one isn’t great on your health. It’s cheesecake damnit! I wish it was better for you, and as I said, with the inclusion of your own homemade cream cheese and maybe even homemade biscuits you can probably make it a bit better. But if you want something indulgent, then just ignore this part.
