No-Bake Cheesecake
INGREDIENTS FOR A 18cm CAKE:
For the base
110g digestive biscuits, finely crushed
45g dairy-free butter, melted
For the filling
440g dairy-free cream cheese (we used VioLife)
125g granulated sugar
25g lemon juice
8g lemon zest, finely grated
190g soy milk
5g agar agar powder
For the topping
250g fruit of your choice, finely diced
25g granulated sugar
STEPS
- Grease an 18cm loose-bottomed, deep cake tin and line the base with baking parchment. Mix the digestives and the butter until evenly combined.
- Use a straight-sided glass to press the crumbs evenly across the base of the tin, and place in the fridge to cool for 20 minutes.
- For the filling, combine the cheese, the sugar, the lemon juice and the zest as evenly as possible. Heat up the filling mixture in a microwave at medium power (300W) or in a bain marie until reasonably hot (60°C/140°F)
- In a saucepan, simmer the milk with the agar for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
- Combine the agar milk with the hot filling mixture, and pour over the biscuit base. Chill for 4 hours, or even better, overnight.
- For the topping, combine the fruit with the sugar, leave it to macerate for 20 minutes and use it to decorate the cake before serving.
SUBSTITUTIONS and TIPS
Sugar: You can use any granulated sugar you want for this recipe, but dark varieties will obviously yield a brown cheesecake. Liquid sweeteners are also an option, but the cheesecake will end up softer.
Butter: The plant-based butter can be substituted with 50/50 mixture of coconut oil and almond butter.
Zest: You can use the zest of any citrus fruit you like for this recipe. Some favourites are orange, Buddha’s hand, and obviously… lemon!
Agar agar: There is currently no substitute for the agar agar, as any other product will give you a completely different result.
Cheese: We have attempted this recipe with a variety of different plant-based cheeses, and they all gave us pretty impressive results. However, the one shown in the video (Violife cream cheese) is the absolute best we’ve found so far for sweet recipes. Another option would be to follow our recipe for basic cream cheese, and use that cheese to make the cake, which also works beautifully.
