Hello all! My name is Emilie, and I am the blogger behind Loose Leaf Vegan. In case you weren't aware, Valentina is my ultimate partner in crime, both in the real world and the virtual one. I met her while we were rushing for Omega Phi Alpha, and we have pretty much been inseparable ever since. Our friendship is built on food, constructed with Disney, and covered in glitter. If you are interested in the Disney and glitter adventures, you should follow our obnoxious selves on Insta, but for now, I'll be sharing a bit of our food obsession with you here. Val and I have been talking about doing a guest post on one another's blog for like, ages. We could just never decide on what we wanted to make! We knew it needed to be something special and fabulous to accurately reflect our special and fabulous relationship, but none of our ideas seemed to fit the boot, or rather, the bow. Finally, over the Christmas holidays, we came up with the perfect theme: chocolate & coffee. Seriously though, these two things literally make up the bloodlife of our conjoined existence. To translate to basic white girl lingo: It was too presh to even.
Coming up with specific recipes was definitely a challenge for both of us. Valentina, who isn't quite a vegan herself, had to come up with a delicious vegan recipe. Of course, Valentina is the baking fairy so she worked her magic and came up with these flawless Cappuccino Brownies. Swoon. Click here to see her recipe! My challenge was that I had to come up with a vegan recipe that didn't contain any weird or difficult-to-find vegan ingredients. Eventually, I decided I wanted to do a vegan cheesecake, but I had to figure out a way to do it using basic ingredients that would be in almost anyone's kitchen. Enter cashews. Cashews are like the fairy godmother of the vegan world. You whisper all of your delicious foodie hopes and dreams and, bippity boppity boo! The cashews magically transform into your heart's {or rather your stomach's} deepest desires. Seriously though, you can do ANYTHING with cashews. Don't believe me? Try this mocha cheesecake! You won't even recognize this versatile nut once you're done. This cheesecake has all of the creaminess and sweetness of the "real" thing, except for it doesn't leave you bloated, gross, and full of regrets. Also, fun to note is that this cheesecake is infinitely less complicated and way harder to screw up than your traditional cheesecake. You simply blend, pour and refrigerate. Easy as pie... or should I say cake?
- *Crust*
- 1¼ cup almonds
- 3 tablespoon cocoa powder
- 3 tablespoon agave
- *Filling*
- 3 cups soaked cashews - soaked at least for 3 hours
- ½ cup melted coconut oil
- ½ cup agave
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup brewed espresso
- *Ganache*
- ½ cup cocoa powder
- ½ cup melted coconut oil
- ½ cup maple syrup
- In food processor, combine all the ingredients for the crust and pulse until fine. Press the crust evenly onto the bottom of a spring form pan.
- Fill a high powered blender with your filling ingredients. Blend your filling ingredients until smooth and silky, about 3-5 minutes.
- In a small bow,l whisk together the ingredients of your ganache until smooth.
- Pour a little bit of your cheesecake filling into the bottom of the spring form pan, just enough to completely cover the crust. Use a spoon to dollop little bits of your ganache on top of the cheesecake filling.
- Use a toothpick to create spirals by dragging it through the center of each dollop outwards. Layer your cheesecake filling on top of the ganache layer and repeat dolloping your ganache and creating spirals on top of that. I did about 4 dollops of ganache per layer and did 3 complete layers.
- Place your layered cheesecake in the freezer for 6-8 hours.
- If you like your cheesecake firmer, or prefer the consistency of ice cream, you can eat your cheesecake right out of the freezer. If you prefer a more traditional creamy consistency, allow your cake to thaw for 5-10 minutes before serving.
vegetarianmamma (Cindy) says
Sounds delicious! Thanks for linking up! I pinned this!
-Cindy