A Vegetarian Dish A Month – December 2024: Vegan Cheesecake
This is it. The final “first time ever” vegan recipe for this year! I’ve now made 12 vegetarian/vegan dishes that I never made before! That’s 12 more meals I can make that are healthier, kinder, and full of flavor than I could ever make before.
My journey took me to different countries (middle east, India, Asia, Europe), to varying levels of cooking difficulty, and gave me a whole new set of things I can make when someone tries to tell me “things that don’t have meat don’t have any flavor.”
So here I am at the end of the year, and I’ve made sauces, appetizers, and main dishes. I decided that it would only be fitting to finish off the year like you finish off a meal: with dessert! My recipe for December, 2024 is vegan cheesecake! Bet you’re curious to know how this one turns out, so read on!
December 2024: Vegan Cheesecake
I wanted the last recipe of this challenge had to be something with some difficulty – when I searched for “vegan dessert recipes” there were some that would’ve just been cheating. (Vegan fruit salad? Really?) After sifting through a few lists of vegan dessert recipes, I found one that was perfect: vegan cheesecake! The recipe was not too simple, but not too hard that I couldn’t pull it off either. It only had 7 ingredients! I loved that it’s a take on something that you expect to have non-vegan ingredients in it, and it’s fancy enough to put on the table after Christmas dinner! If it came out well, this is one I could easily pull out and make for parties.
There are plenty of recipes out there, but I chose this one: https://dishingouthealth.com/vegan-strawberry-cheesecake/.
The Recipe
As I mentioned, the small number of ingredients was a big draw for me. It called for just:
- Almonds
- Dates
- Cashews
- Coconut cream
- Coconut oil
- Sugar
- Salt
The execution was simple enough, but a food processor is absolutely necessary.
For the crust, you simply blended the almonds until they became sand-like. Then add the dates and salt and blend down more. A word of caution on this one: you need a pretty good food processor for this, or just chop the dates by hand. The dates were SO sticky in my food processor that after a couple minutes of chopping, my food processor started to smoke. Uh oh.
For the “cheese”, I boiled the cashews for 25-30 minutes to soften them up, then blended them with the coconut cream, coconut oil, and sugar until they came to a nice creamy texture. My food processor was actually not quite good enough to get it to a fully creamy texture and I still had some pretty fine cashew bits in my “cheese”.
After that it was just a matter of putting it all together: press the almond/date mixture into a baking pan, then pour the cream over it. Toss it into the freezer for 5+ hours, and it was set!
The Verdict
I was so nervous for how this would come out. Like many desserts, it’s hard to make something that tastes absolutely terrible, but I wanted this to be amazing. This was my first time making anything like this: no bake, just blend and freeze, no dairy products, so my confidence was low. But to my surprise, it actually came out pretty well!
If I could, I think I would change the name of the dish, because I don’t think it was very cheesecake-like. Because of all the coconut cream and coconut oil, the flavor was very strong of coconut, though the lemon and nuttiness of the cashews also really came through to make it tangy, and the texture really creamy and enjoyable. It also wasn’t overly sweet, which was a bonus for me, as I don’t like desserts that are overpoweringly sweet. I also really think the strawberries added a lot to the dish and would highly recommend pairing some kind of fruit with it if you try to make it yourself. The fruit gave it a light freshness that went well with the heavier coconut cream.
Overall, the “cheesecake” was sweet, creamy, and had the right balance of being dense, but not too heavy. I really enjoyed it, as did my wife and daughter. It’s a dish that I don’t think I’ll be making often, but could totally imagine making it for a family gathering or holiday dinner. It’s quick, easy, doesn’t use the oven (which you usually have to fight for when making holiday dinners), can be made the night before, and the food processor does all of the heavy lifting. A great dessert to have in my pocket!
Bye, 2024!
Alas, this is the last vegetarian/vegan cooking post I will be doing. I learned a lot from the challenge, not only the new recipes, but also that food blogging is a lot harder than it looks. I’m not sure I’m cut out for it, but it was a fun challenge to try for a year! For 2025, I’ll have to find myself a new challenge to undertake.
I should also note that this is probably the only time in my life I’ve ever actually kept up a New Years’ Resolution for a full year, so I’m so proud of myself for deciding to do this, and then sticking with it!
I’d love to hear any input you have on this cheesecake recipe, the blog series, or anything else related to Verdant Growth so please comment down below!
Happy new year everyone and see you in 2025!
