Creamy Vegan Cheesecake (Jessica in the Kitchen)
Cheesecake is a real favourite in England, even though it hails from New York. It’s easy these days to find vegan cheese in stores (if buying ready-made biscuits for the base, Mr Organic is a good brand that’s free from palm oil).
Before baking, read up on food safety for people and pets (many ingredients like chocolate, nuts, dried fruits, citrus and nutmeg are unsafe near animal friends).
Some more natural cheesecakes make use of date-sweetened blends of nuts and seeds and silken tofu flavoured with fruits for inside. Or even soaked cashews.
Date-Sweetened Easy Vegan Cheesecake
This no-bake cheesecake (Ela Vegan) is very simple to make. Sweetened with dates and made with oats, nuts or seeds, it’s flavoured with vanilla and even makes a good breakfast.
Baked Coffee Vegan Cheesecake
This baked coffee vegan cheesecake (Ela Vegan) is a make-ahead dessert that you simply pop in the fridge to chill for several hours. The base is made with ground nuts/seeds, dried fruits, vanilla and coconut milk, then pour in silken tofu and coconut milk filling, with coffee, nut butter and maple syrup.
The cheesecake is then topped with a ganache (coffee, chocolate and nut butter).
6-Ingredient Vegan Lemon Cheesecake
This 6-ingredient lemon cheesecake (Ela Vegan) is decorated with fresh strawberries. The granola crust is made with coconut butter, and sweetened with maple syrup.
Vegan Ginger Cheesecake with Poached Pears
This recipe for poached pears with ginger orange cheesecake (Rainbow Plant Life) is one of many vegan cheesecake recipes on the web. The crust only needs 4 ingredients including soaked raw cashews and coconut cream (made by chilling cans of coconut milk). The ‘cheese’ in this case if vegan cream cheese, which is easy to find these days.
To make the recipe extra special, serve alongside poached pears (try to find juicy organic pears from farm shops, rather than rock-hard frozen ones in supermarkets). For this recipe, pears are poached in a combo of orange juice, white wine, sugar alongside orange peel, ginger and cinnamon sticks.
No-Bake Vegan Chocolate Cheesecake
This no-bake vegan chocolate cheesecake (Purely Kaylie) is a simple recipe that uses wholesome ingredients. So if you love cheesecake and chocolate, now you can indulge, without worrying about your cholesterol!
There are a few common ingredients (cashews, coconut milk, cocoa powder) along with a couple you may have to seek out (almond flour and coconut whipped cream – Nature’s Charm is a good brand).
It’s easy to make, and you don’t need an oven, nor even a food processor! Posh enough to serve guests in triple layers, serve with vegan cream.
A Recipe for Vegan Pumpkin Cheesecake
Baked Vegan Pumpkin Cheesecake (Rainbow Nourishments) uses ready-made ginger cookies (Mr Organic and Rhythm 108 are both free from palm oil) for the crust, and tops with a caramel pecan glaze.
Keep nuts and spices (like nutmeg and mace) away from pets. Read more on food safety for people and pets.
This is a baked vegan cheesecake that is really easy to make, using warm spices and vegan cream cheese.
If you can’t find canned pumpkin puree (and don’t want to make from scratch) you can use cooked sweet potato (also make ‘pumpkin pie spice’ by blending sweet spices (cinnamon, ginger etc).
Although an American dessert, everyone loves cheesecake. And a big slice of this makes a fantastic dessert, to finish off your plant-based meal!
Choose Small Pumpkins for Best Flavour
Pumpkins are a winter squash and are very tasty, if you buy the small ones. You can also roast and eat the seeds, which are high in zinc.
More popular in the USA and Canada (where pumpkin pie is the official Thanksgiving dessert), they are also delicious in soup and quickbreads.
The word comes from the German for ‘pepon’ which means ‘large melon’. They are quite bland and taste a bit like sweet potato, it’s mainly the other ingredients like spices that bring out their flavour.
Pumpkins are a huge food waste issue, due to Halloween. These large (edible though tasteless) pumpkins are bred, leaving around 22 million to rot on landfills each year. Generating methane gas, instead of feeding hungry people.
How to Prepare a Fresh Pumpkin
Although canned pumpkin puree is good for desserts and baking, it’s best to use fresh pumpkin for savoury dishes. It’s pretty easy to prepare, as long as you have a good serrated knife to slice the pumpkin. Chop flesh into wedges, toss in oil and spices, and bake in the oven for around 30 to 40 minutes.
Scoop out the (rinsed) seeds, boil in salted water for 10 minutes, then roast with oil and spices in the oven for 10 minutes.
Some recipes online for pumpkin use Specoloos biscuits, but they are made with palm oil. You can make your own speculoos cookies with brown sugar, spices, sea salt and vegan butter (Flora has no palm oil).
