STRESSED is DESSERTS spelled backwards
I hope you are all doing fine and safe while being in quarantine. During this stressful time, dessert is much needed to de-stress and to cheer oneself up. As I am working from home for most of the days, I got more time to whip up a storm in the kitchen. Cheesecake has been my favorite dessert before I went vegan, especially the Cookie & Cream Cheesecake. So I am recreating it in vegan style!
Love-Hate Relationship With Vegan Cheesecake
I know you can easily create vegan cheesecake by using ingredients like cashews, coconut cream and coconut oil. However, as much as I love coconut, I don’t think that it’s appropriate to have coconut flavors in every vegan dessert. Sometimes, you just want the authentic cheesecake flavor with the right tanginess and richness.
Neutral Tasting Ingredients
So for this Cookie & Cream Cheesecake recipe, I chose to use neutral tasting ingredients to account for the creaminess of the cheesecake. Here I use a combination of cashews, tofu and vegan cream cheese. I found the combination of this 3 ingredients yield the perfect cheesecake texture. Cashews for richness, tofu for slight fluffiness and vegan cream cheese for the tanginess.
Star Of The Dessert – Cookie & Cream
For the cookie & cream part, I used those gluten-free chocolate vanilla cream cookies from Glutino. But you can use whatever cookie & cream cookies you have on hand. As the star of this dessert is Cookie & Cream, I incorporated those cookies in the crust, the filling and finished off with some crumbled cookie & cream on top, making every bite a cookie & cream flavor explosion.
Water Bath For Cheesecake
While you can bake it like you normally do when you bake a cake, I recommend you to bake this cheesecake in a water bath. Baking it in a water bath helps prevent the centre from collapsing and the edge getting too dry. To do so, you simply have to wrap the bottom and the edge of your cake pan with aluminium foil. Then, place the wrapped cake pan on a baking tray with hot water halfway up to the cake pan.
Vegan Cookie & Cream Cheesecake (Gluten-free)
Course: DessertCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Medium4
servings15
minutes40
minutesIngredients
- Crust
1 Tbsp vegan butter (melted)
- Filling
1/2 cup cashews (soaked overnight)
1/2 cup tofu
1/2 cup vegan cream cheese
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Pinch of lemon zest
1/4 cup sugar (I used coconut sugar)
3 medjool dates
4 Chocolate vanilla cream cookies (crushed)
- Toppings
3 Chocolate vanilla cream cookies (crushed)
Directions
- Crust
- Preheat oven to 175°C. In a food processor, add the cookie and butter. Process until the ingredients are incorporated.
- Press the mixture firmly onto a lined 5-inch springform cake pan. Bake in the oven for 5 minutes.
- Filling
- Place all ingredients (except the cookies) into a high-speed blender and blend until the mixture is silky smooth.
- Break the cookies into chunks and stir them into the filling mixture.
- Pour the mixture over the crust, gently tap the pan on the counter to release any air bubbles that might have formed.
- Wrap the bottom and the side of the pan with aluminium foil.
- Place the wrapped cake pan on a baking tray with hot water halfway up to the cake pan (about 1 inch).
- Bake for 45 minutes. Remove the pan from the water bath, as well as the aluminium foil.
- Let it cool completely, then place it in the fridge overnight to set completely before removing it from the pan.
- Serve with some crumbled cookies.
