Vegan Cheesecake (The Raw Cashew Edition)

Sorry, we just realized we have been out of touch for the past 3 months… We had a few changes in our lives and that kept us busy. But it all seems to be settled now, so hopefully we can again pay more attention to our baby-blog.

Since last summer we have been looking for the perfect vegan cheesecake recipe. Can’t be that hard, right? Well,… One of the attempts that got close to perfect we had found in a vegan magazine. Or at least the inspiration for our research. (I love Germany for having such things!) It’s based on nuts. Cashew nuts.

It takes quite some time but it’s totally worth it.

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 RAW VEGAN CHEESECAKE

Total preparation time: 2 hours (+ soaking & chilling)

Ingredients:

The base:

• 1 cup of pitted dates
• 1,5 cups of walnuts
• a pinch of salt
• 3 tsp of Agave syrup
• 1 tbsp of coconut oil
• 1/3 cup of shredded coconut

Put all ingredients in the blender and mix it until it is a smooth dough. I have to warn you that this maneuver killed our hand mixer, so only start to do this recipe if you have a really strong blender. Or make it only with agave syrup. Put the base into a cake mould, the layer should be about 1/2 cm.

The cream: 

• 2 cups of cashew, soaked overnight
• 1 lemon (juiced + skin)
• 1/2 cups of coconut oil (melted)
• 1/2 cup of agave syrup (or according to taste)
• 1 vanilla bean (scrapped)

You need to soak the cashews the day before. Blend all the ingredients, mix it until it gets smooth and soft. Fill the cream into the mould as well.

Main ingredients: nuts&fruits

Topping:

• fruits
• 4 dl of water or orange juice
• 1/2 tsp of agar-agar
• lemon juice (optional)
• raspberry syrup (optional)

As this was actually my belated birthday cake in September, I could still find some fresh berries at the Turkish stand next to our place. I used that to decorate the top of the cake and finished it  with some agar-agar.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the taste of agar-agar. It should have a neutral taste, but despite having tried several brands, to me it has an unpleasant flavour. Thus, I always try to add some strong flavours to it (orange juice, lemon juice or some syrup). If you want to make sure it tastes good, mix all of them! :P

Mix agar-agar with the liquids, bring it to boiling and boil it for about 5 minutes. Then let it cool down to 35-40 degrees (Celsius). This is when it has the best texture to pour it on your cake. It takes another 2-3 hours for the jelly to chill.

Decoration:

• 1 cup of coconut whipped cream
• almond flakes

I still need to practice this decoration-thing.

As I sad, it was meant to be my birthday cake, so we did not spare with ingredients. I decorated the side and top of the cake with coconut whipped cream (you can buy this in vegan stores, it takes about 2 minutes to whip it and tastes OMG so good) and some almond flakes.

It’s not the fastest and easiest cake I have ever made, nor is it a low-calorie treat. Yet, it is delicious and even healthy (unless you eat the whole cake yourself).

It had a really nice texture in the end.

We are doing some more cheesecake-experiements with silken tofu and soya yoghurt, we will let you know as soon as we have a satisfying outcome.

 

Hungarian Gerbaud-inspired Birthday Cake

August is our month for celebrations: birthdays, anniversaries line up and they get us start…baking!!

 

Abel celebrates together with about 1 billion people (Independence Day of India) and I decided to try to recover my cake baking skills. As a teenager I used to bake a lot, but that was a long time ago and I was never an expert on decorating. “Ugly and yummie” – said an iconic Hungarian chocolate commercial, and that was true for my cakes as well.

One of my “creations” at the age of 16.

Yet, I gave my best… As my mother sent a package with walnuts from my Grandmother’s garden, I didn’t have to think long. And I just realized it was probably inspired by Zserbó (or Gerbaud, named after a famous pastry shop owner), a.k.a. the traditional Hungarian Christmas pastry. :)

Contrary to our plans made long time ago, Abel was not working on the 15th of August, a public holiday here. Thus I had to speed up and make the cake within one day. Usually I like to take two days to make a nice cake.

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WALNUT CAKE

Ingredients (for a cake of 24-26 cm)

Dough (sponge cake)

• 2.5 cups of flour
• 4 tbsp of grated walnut
• 1 package of baking soda
• a pinch of salt
• 1 tsp of cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
• 1 package of vanilla sugar
• 6 tbsp of honey
• 1.5 cups of soy milk
• 1/2 cup of oil
• 2 tbsp of vinegar

Sieve the flour and the cocoa powder and mix all the dry ingredients. Then add the liquid ingredients and mix it well. Pour the dough into a form. I used a flower-shaped silicon form. I love that the slices become hearts when you cut it! :) Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees and bake it for about 25-30 minutes.

Vegan Sponge Cake

Walnut cream I

• 1.5 cups of raisins
• 1 cup of walnut
• 2 tbsp of honey
• rum

Some days before, I put the raisins in a jar and filled it up with rum, so that they soak through.

Put raisins into a blender (better wash them before, my cream got a bit too…. alcoholic!), add nuts and honey. Mix it until it gets a nice smooth paste. It should be like a jam.

Walnut-Raisin Cream

Walnut cream II

• 1 cup of silken tofu
• 1 cup of sweetened cocoa butter
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 cup of grated walnut

Melt cocoa butter and pour it into the blender, together with the other ingredients. When the cream cools down, it should have the perfect texture for the cake.

Walnut Mousse

Decoration

• vegan chocolate
• (coconut) oil
• 1 cup of vegan whipped cream
• 1 tsp of agar-agar + vegan milk/water
• 1 lemon (skin)
• 6 tbsp honey
• Hazelnut croccante and grated walnut

I wanted to make 3 layers but finally I managed to cut the cake only into two.

For the top of the cake I melted some vegan chocolate and added some oil to make it shiny. I also made some deco-hearts. To write on the cake and for the sides, I made a cream out of vegan whipped cream, honey and lemon; mixed with hot agar-agar.

A slice of my heart :P

Tip: Agar-agar needs about 4 hours time to take effect – I did not have so much time, as you will see on the result. I suggest to wait and decorate the cake later, to avoid cream dropping down. Usually one afternoon I make the base and the cream of the cake, leave the decoration for the next evening, and present it on the third day.

Abel told me he wanted some fruit cake for his birthday. Unfortunately a notice too late but… he ate it all! :) And I’m also quite proud of my first (almost) vegan cake.

Abel 2(0)9! :)

 

Happy Birthday, mi amor!

 

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