Spicy Vegan Christmas Cheesecake

Full of festive flavours, this Spicy Vegan Christmas Cheesecake will be an absolute hit at any Christmas table!

We are spending Christmas Eve with the family, and I decided to bring a cake. The family is not vegan, so I have to ensure the cake is delicious and everyone will love it. I experimented a bit this week and came up with a delicious recipe! Actually, 'came up with a recipe' might be a bit of an overstatement - I basically tweaked my usual vegan chocolate cheesecake recipe and used a bunch of festive flavours instead of chocolate and et violà; it turned out great.

This is a no bake and easy to make cake;). The base ingredients are cashews, silken tofu and spices, so it’s also guilt free - low calorie, healthy and nutritious. I used maple syrup as a sweetener for the cream and dates for the base. Tofu, cashews and walnuts are an excellent source of Calcium, Iron and Potassium.

If you decide to try it out, let me know how it turned out. If it turns out picture perfect and you publish it on IG, you can tag me @ninasplantbasedkitchen

Happy Christmas!

Notes

This was a trial version so I used a small, 18 cm diameter (900 ml) springform pan for this trial version. If you are using a large springform pan (24 cm) you will need to double the ingredients. A good way to be sure how by much is to measure the volume of your pan in ml using water.
This recipe uses fortified Muscat wine (Portuguese Moscatel), but it works well without it as well, especially if you are planning to serve the cake to small kids.
I use agar-agar powder, not flakes. You can still use flakes, but just make sure you follow the recipe. That’s why I’m using the grams and not teaspoons for measurement, teaspoon of agar flakes vs powder is very different.
Soak the cashews for a few hours at least. You can blanch them as well, but I find that soaked work much better.
If you can’t find vegan gingerbread cookies, you can use digestives or similar.
It’s important that you use silken tofu (I use Clearspring organic), not another kind.
You can play with the spices and add more of the spice you prefer, or take out something you don’t. Maybe start with half quantities and take it from there.

PREP TIME: 30 minutes
SERVES: 8 slices

Ingredients

Crust:

100 g vegan gingerbread cookies
30 g walnuts
2 Medjool dates
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp Muscat wine (optional)

Cream:

300 g silken tofu
200 g soaked cashews
120 ml maple syrup
10 ml muscat wine (optional)
2 tsp burbon vanilla extract

2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
10 ml water
3 g agar-agar powder

Decoration:

Dark chocolate shavings
Orange zest

Method

Blend the cookies and walnuts until you get a powdery mix. Blend the dates into the mixture.
Cover the bottom of the pan using a spoon to even out the surface, pressing gently.
Sprinkle the crust with lemon juice and Muscat wine and refrigerate.
Blend the silken tofu, soaked cashews, Muscat wine and maple syrup until you get an even, silky mix.
Start adding in the spices (see notes).
Bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan. Once it does, add the agar-agar and stir for a minute or two (until it starts to form into a gel).
Pour into the cream mix and blend for 30 sec. Pour into the pan and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Decorate and refrigerate again until serving.