Vegan Gingerbread Cheesecake
Vegan gingerbread cheesecake - this easy no-bake dairy free cheesecake is the perfect dessert for Christmas!
Servings 10 people
Ingredients
Crust:
- 250 g (9 oz) gingernut biscuits
- 75 g (⅓ cup) vegan block butter melted
Filling:
- 250 g (9 oz) unroasted cashews
- 450 g (1 lb) vegan cream cheese
- 200 g (7 oz) extra firm/firm tofu* excess liquid drained off
- 100 g (½ cup) light or dark brown soft sugar
- 50 g (2 ½ Tablespoons) black treacle/molasses
- 60 g (¼ cup) vegan block butter melted
- 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- finely grated zest of 1 large orange
- 4 teaspoons ground ginger
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Instructions
- Line the base and sides of a 20 cm/8 in round springform cake tin with baking paper.
- Place the biscuits in a food processor and blitz until very finely crushed. Alternatively, place them in a sealable freezer bag wrapped in a tea towel and bash them with a rolling pin.
- Tip the crushed biscuits into a bowl and mix in the melted vegan butter. It should resemble damp sand.
- Tip the biscuit mixture into the prepared tin and pack the crumbs down really firmly and evenly, use the base of a glass to help press them down.
- Optionally for a crisper base, bake it in a preheated oven at 180°C/160°C fan/350°F/gas mark 4 for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.
- Place the cashews in a large bowl, cover with a generous amount of boiling water and leave to soak for 1 hour.
- Drain the cashews really well and place in a blender along with the cream cheese, firm tofu, sugar, treacle, melted butter, lemon juice, vanilla extract, orange zest, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg.
- Blend the filling mixture until it is extremely smooth with no hint of graininess. This can take a while so stop regularly to let the blender cool down and scrape down the sides as needed.
- Pour the cheesecake filling on top of the biscuit base and spread it level. Refrigerate for 8 hours until set. You can also place it in the freezer for about 4 hours.
- To serve the cheesecake, remove the springform tin and carefully peel off the baking paper. If you like you can smooth round the edges with a palette knife to neaten. Keep refrigerated.
Notes
- All of my recipes are developed using grams, and as with all of my baking recipes I really do recommend using the metric measurements with a digital scale rather than the cup coversions. Cups are a wildly inaccurate measuring system and you will get far better, more consistent results using a scale, not to mention that it is also easier and less messy than cups!
- See post above for tips, details and step-by-step photos.
- Ideally you need a power blender (such as Froothie/Vitamix) for the smoothest cheesecake. You can still make it with a regular blender, but it might not be quite as smooth and creamy.
- *For a softer, lighter cheesecake, you can swap the firm tofu for either silken tofu or a thick, Greek style vegan yogurt (such as Alpro Greek or the Coconut Collaborative). In this case you will need to increase the amount of butter in the filling to 100g.