Just want the recipe? Click here.

I love cheesecake. I love the smooth and creamy texture of the cheese combined with the crunchy biscuit base. I love the way it melts in my mouth, and how satisfied I feel when I eat it. I love the variety of flavours, from mixed berry, to chocolate, to salted caramel. Yes, my love for cheesecake is incomparable. But, as a vegan, how was I ever going to satisfy my cheesecake needs?!

And that was when I discovered ‘cashew-cheesecake’. I was baffled, how on earth could nuts be formed into a cheese like texture, surely that wasn’t possible? Of course, I was wrong. Using one of the many recipes available on-line, I made my own vanilla ‘cheesecake’, not so long after I chose the vegan lifestyle, actually. When I initially started blending the soaked nuts I was incredibly dubious, especially as the blender just seemed to be forming broken up nuts, and not the creamy texture I was wondering. But lo and behold, after roughly 5 minutes I had exactly what I was looking for! And it tasted bloody good! (friends and family agreed, and nobody would believe the ingredients).

So that brings me to the recipe for you all today. I had an excellent trip to Makro (a cash and carry for those of you who don’t recognise the name) with a friend, where I purchased an insane amount dates and cashew nuts. I had a cheesecake craving, and it needed to be satisfied!

I had a huge bag of frozen raspberries in the freezer, and wasn’t fancying just a plain vanilla cheesecake, so I had a little think as to what flavour combinations I could try. Then I saw I still had a load of dessicated coconut left over from my loaf, and realised that it would perfectly compliment the raspberry (oh  and if you hadn’t already realised, I LOVE coconut). The recipe worked, and produced the most gorgeous coloured ‘cheese’. Hoorah!

I now have 3/4 of this cheesecake sat in my fridge, and it’s taking all of my willpower not to demolish it all. Must. Resist.