Baked Vegan Tofu Cheesecake
Our plant-based food blogger Luna was a busy bee creating her new website which is now done and we’re happy she will continue to share some of her recipes with us.
Finally, a baked (not raw!) vegan cheesecake with natural ingredients that is easy to make and tastes great. I really love the taste of cheesecake and was eager to find a way to re-create it without dairy cheese, refined sugars and store-bought biscuits in the crust, and I am so happy to be sharing this recipe with you.
This cake doesn’t use raw nuts as most vegan cheesecakes do. The main ingredient is - tofu which is less heavy and full of protein.
In this recipe I like to use agave nectar to keep the cream light in colour, but other non-refined sweeteners such as maple syrup, coconut sugar or light muscovado will work well too.
I hope you won’t get scared off when you read the ingredient list and the process – this cake is actually pretty easy to make, just requires a little bit of patience with waiting for each layer to cool down.
Ingredients
80 g ground almonds (2.8 oz)
80 g oat flour or ground oatmeal (2.8 oz)
80 g almond butter (2.8 oz)
80 g coconut oil (2.8 oz)
80 g coconut sugar (2.8 oz)
1 pinch Himalayan salt
800 g semi-firm tofu (280 oz)
1 + 1/2 large lemon - juice and zest
1 tsp light miso paste
2 pinches Himalayan salt
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
125 ml agave nectar (4.2 fl. oz)
20 g white spelt flour (0.7 oz / 2 tbsp)
10 g tapioca starch (0.35 oz / 2 tbsp)
300 g fresh plums (10.6 oz)
125 ml water (4.2 fl. oz)
50 g fresh elderberries (1.7 oz)
50 ml agave nectar or maple syrup (1.7 fl. oz)
1 tbsp lemon juice
4 g agar powder (around 1 tsp / 0.14 oz)
Instructions
Mix the ground almonds, oat flour and coconut sugar in a bowl.
Melt the coconut oil over a double boiler, add the almond butter and whisk to combine.
Pour the liquid mixture into the bowl with dry ingredients and mix to combine.
Transfer the batter into a cake mould* and bake on 180 °C for 20 minutes.
Let the crust cool down and harden a bit* while you prepare the cream.
To make the "cheese" cream, put all the tofu, juice and zest of 1 and 1/2 lemon, miso paste, salt, nutritional yeast, agave, spelt flour and tapioca starch into a blender and blend well to combine.
Pour the cream over the crust and bake on 160 °C for 50 minutes.
Let the cake cool down to the room temperature, and then place it in the fridge for a couple of hours or overnight.
To make the plum and elderberry jelly, blend the fruits with 125 ml water, some lemon juice and agave nectar in a blender to combine.
Pour it into a saucepan and cook over a low heat for about 5 minutes, with constant stirring.
Add the agar powder*, whisk in the pan to dissolve completely and let it boil on the lowest heat for up to a minute (continue stirring with a whisk while it cooks).
Pour the liquid jelly on top of the cheesecake and put the cake back in the fridge to set. Fifteen to twenty minutes should be enough if the cake was already cold.
Notes
I used a 22 cm diameter circular cake mould, which is about 8.7 inch
After the baked crust is taken out of the oven, it will feel soft to touch (you should actually avoid touching it at this point, so you can just take my word for it:) - for that reason I like to leave it to cool down and harden a bit for the best result. If you have enough time, you can even make the crust an hour or two in advance before making the cream (this is how I usually do it).
In this recipe I like to use agave nectar to keep the cream light in colour, but other sweetener of choice (such as maple syrup or coconut sugar) will work well too. The non-carbohydrate sweeteners such as xylitol can be OK as well, but I prefer the real sugars in this recipe, as tofu does have a bit of a flavour that actually gets neutralised a bit with a combination of agave and lemon juice.
For a gluten-free version, replace the spelt flour in the cream with the same amount of fine rice flour
This recipe does not require a high speed blender, because all the ingredients are naturally soft and easy to blend. Even a simple food processor will work just fine.
I used around a teaspoon of agar powder in this recipe, which equals a tablespoon of agar flakes
Bon appétit!
Luna Dzidic
Luna, our vegan food blogger, is a biologist and a plant-based chef we have been collaborating for many years. She is currently working as a menu consultant and recipe developer.
”I’m inspired with real food, natural healing and ways to live a more sustainable lifestyle. I love to cook with foraged plants and make all kinds of fermented foods and drinks, but also to create simple and delicious dishes using some more common and well-known ingredients. With all the recipes and tips on this blog, I would love to show you that wholesome, plant-based food can be fun and delicious, as well as a powerful tool to take charge of your own health in a natural way. It helped me a lot with achieving optimal health, and I am sure it can help you too!” - Luna