Ombre Vegan “Cheesecake”

This is quite a lengthy recipe.  Each stage doesn’t take that much time, but there are quite a few stages.

INGREDIENTS

For the base:

60g pumpkin seeds

60g sunflower seeds

60g pine nuts

2 tsp cocoa powder

120 g soft pitted dates

2 tsp vanilla essence

 

For the cheesecake layers:

300g cashew nuts

100g almonds

130ml almond milk

80g maple syrup

3 tbsp cocoa powder

For the top:

Any decorations you fancy.  I used dark chocolate curls.

 

1. Check you have space in your freezer for your cake tin (15cm round).
2. Soak the cashew nuts and almonds in water, preferably overnight. but for at least 2 hours.
3. Line your cake tin with strong cling film.  As you can see in the pictures, I used a baking parchment cake tin liner and it was a bit of a faff, so I think cling film is the way to go.
4. Pulse all of the base ingredients together in a food processor then blend continuously until the mixture starts to stick together.
5. Put the mixture in the cake tin and pack it down until you have a nice, smooth layer.
6. Put the base-filled cake tin in the freezer while you make the filling.
7. Drain and rinse the cashews and almonds.  Then blend these together by pulsing at high and low speeds.  [At this point, I added in the optional step of discovering that my blender was not up to the job so I had to buy a better one].
8. Add the remaining ingredients except the cocoa powder, and blend until smooth.
9. Remove the cake tin from the freezer, and pour about 1/3 of the layer mixture to make an even layer.
10. Put this in the freezer for 2 hours.
11. Mix in 1 tbsp of cocoa powder to the remaining 2/3 of layer mixture.  Remove the cake tin from the freezer, and pour about 1/2 of the remaining mixture (1/3 of your original quantity) to make an even layer.
12. Put this in the freezer for 2 hours.
13. Mix in 2 tbsp of cocoa powder to the remaining layer mixture.  Remove the cake tin from the freezer, and pour all the remaining mixture to make an even layer.
14. Add any decoration; I used dark chocolate curls.
15. Put this in the freezer for a final 2 hours.When it was frozen, I cut the cheesecake into portion slices, and returned them to the freezer individually wrapped.  Now, I have a ready supply of gluten free, vegan treats whenever I need them.