This blogpost also is available in German.
What’s the best thing to do on a grey freezingly cold Sunday in January? Exactly, making a vegan no-bake lemon cheesecake. There‘s nothing like that! The bright yellow color of this cake will definitely bring some sunshine into your home. And you don‘t even need your oven, as it’s raw, as well as completely made out of natural ingredients.
Lemon Cheesecake – vegan & no baking needed
Now you might ask yourself, how can a cheesecake be vegan? Well, technically spoken it can‘t, unless you use vegan cream cheese. Indeed not such an impossible option, as there are different brands out there selling vegan cream cheese nowadays. So there you go with your plant-based cheesecake that actually is a cheesecake.
But honestly, if you take a look around social media or other blogs, you see a lot of vegan cheesecakes made out of soaked cashews or silken tofu. Ok, we agree on the fact, that they don‘t have anything to do with a real cheesecake except the way they look and get prepared. But before veganism became fashionable trendy and there weren’t thousands of veganized options available, vegans had to get creative, finding ways to transform their favorite dishes into plant-based ones. And that‘s one of the reasons these cheesecakes still are the most common ones. Besides the fact that silken tofu/firm tofu and cashews mostly are easier to find in stores than vegan cream cheese. Oh and not to forget the best thing about these cheesecakes; they taste heavenly good.
Vegan No-Bake Lemon Cheesecake
Now there’s one more question in your mind right? Why silken tofu or cashews? Let’s see… What do silken tofu, cashews, and cream cheese have in common? Exactly, they are all quite subtle, not too prominent in taste. An important characteristic for a cheesecake. You can add whatever ingredient to a vegan cheesecake with cashews or silken tofu and it will get the flavor of that very ingredient. In our case lemon, which is super splashy and refreshing, but more about that later. Second soaked cashews or silken tofu result in the perfect creamy texture if chilled for a few hours, which is exactly what you want for a cheesecake. I mean come on, with cheesecake it‘s all about the firm creaminess right?
The time has arrived to talk this cheesecake in deets. Ready? The crust is a mixture of almonds, dates, lemon zest and vanilla. A little bit on the sweeter side, but that‘s perfectly fine, as the cream layer is sour. So in one sentence, this cheesecake is the perfect fusion of sweet and sour. I used silken and firm tofu for the upper layer, but feel free to only use silken tofu or cashews. Just remember that the cashews need to be soaked over night. Use turmeric powder to get a nice yellow color.
This is definitely not only the perfect vegan cheesecake for hot summer days – preferably directly out of the fridge – but also great for grey cold winter days!
Read you soon
Sarah
Vegan No-Bake Lemon Cheesecake
Ingredients
cheesecake crust
- 300 g almonds or hazelnuts organic
- 1 package vanillin sugar
- 6 g lemon zest organic
- 6 pitted medjool dates organic, approximately 85g dates
- 1 tbsp lemon juice organic
- 4 tsp coconut oil organic, melted
- 1 tsp vanilla extract organic
cheesecake filling
- 500 g silken tofu organic
- 250 g firm tofu organic
- 55 ml oat milk organic
- 1 tbsp agave syrup organic
- 1 package vanillin sugar
- 1 lemon, the zest & juice organic
- 2 tbsp lemon juice organic
- 5 g ground turmeric organic
Instructions
- Put almonds into a food processor and pulse several times until they are coarsley ground.
- Add all the other crust ingredients and mix until you got a sticky mixture.
- Lay some parchment paper on your springform pan and baste it with coconut oil. Start pressing the sticky mixture onto the bottom forming a crust.
- Remove all the additional water in the firm tofu by pressing and tapping it softly with a kitchen towel.
- Put all the ingredients for the filling into a blender and mix until smooth. Pour the filling over your crust.
- Refrigerate cheesecake for at least 3 hours or until the filling is firm enough.