With a Digestive biscuit crust layer, a vegan cream cheese and cashew based centre and a lemon jelly layer topping it all off.
Ingredients
Crust
- 160 g vegan digestive biscuits
- 70 g vegan butter melted
Filling
- 400 g vegan cream cheese
- 300 g cashews
- 100 ml lemon juice
- 50 ml water
- 150 g coconut cream
- 150 g caster sugar
- 2 tsp agar agar powder
- 2 tsp vanilla paste
- 1 tbsp lemon extract
- pinch salt
Jelly Layer
- 125 ml lemon juice
- 175 ml water
- 60 g caster sugar
- 3/4 tsp agar agar powder
- pinch turmeric
Instructions
Crust
- Pulse the biscuits in a food processor until they are completely crushed. Add the melted butter and process until well combined.
- Place a circular disk of parchment in the bottom of the cake tin to help get the cake out. Place the mixture into the cake tin and spread evenly. Use a cup and baking parchment to flatten it down. Chill in the freezer for 30 minutes.
Filling
- Bring half a saucepan of water to a boil and boil the 300g cashews for 20 minutes to soften them (you can also soak them in hot water overnight). Discard the soaking water and place them into the food processor with the lemon juice. Blitz until smooth.
- Warm up the vegan cream cheese in the microwave for 30 seconds so that it will be easier to blend (if it’s coconut base it’ll soften easily, if it’s tofu-based it may only get a little soft).
- Add this vegan cream cheese to the food processor with the vanilla paste, lemon extract and salt then blitz again until smooth. It will be very thick so you may have to scrape down the sides to get it to blend completely smooth.
- Mix the agar powder with the sugar so that it is “dispersed” – this prevents clumping. Add the 50ml water to this mix to form a sugary paste. Then add this mixture to a pan with the coconut cream.
- Turn on a medium-low heat and bring the cream mixture to a simmer. Stir constantly to prevent the agar from clumping around the edges. Once it starts simmering, stir for another 1 minute and then take off the heat.
- Quickly pour this hot cream into the blender with the other ingredients and blitz on high until completely smooth and incorporated.
- Pour this cream into the cake tin in on top of the frozen crust and leave it in the fridge to set for at least 3 hours.
Jelly Layer
- Mix together the sugar and the agar powder in a small bowl. Add a few tablespoons of the 175ml water until the sugar and agar are dissolved.
- Pour this into a pan with the rest of the water and about 1/3rd of the lemon juice. Turn the heat up to medium-low and bring to a simmer. Allow to simmer for 1 minute until the liquid is clear and the agar is fully dissolved.
- Take it off the heat and mix in the rest of the lemon juice.
- Gently pour onto the cheesecake layer.
- Chill for at least 1 hour. Serve!
This recipe was republished with permission from Project Vegan Baking.
Find the original recipe here.