Simple, attractive, cheap to make yet with the richness you’d expect of a cheesecake dessert. This recipe was passed down to the Invercargill Vegan Society from our Seventh Day Adventist friends who run a weekly Vegan cooking class in Invercargill :-) How can we ever repay them? You can be a fancy showoff and use a springform pan, taking the sides off :-) Or play it safe with a traditional fixed side dish, this can be a risky recipe, and if it all slumps down, you’re left with a mess – “Raspberry Passionfruit Trifle” :-)
– A baking dish, tray or pan, ideally a Springform pan – found at any good supermarket in the pots/pans section, they have a clasp which allows the side walls to be lifted up and away from the bottom. The cheesecake is left sitting on the base, it’s glorious sides exposed to the elements! Can be risky though – cheesecakes can collapse! If in doubt, stick with a sided pan!
– Medium Pot for heating ingredients
Cup for measuring water
– Stirring Spoon
– Tablespoon
– “Soy Margarine” knife to remove the cheesecake from the sides of the pan
– Can opener/INVSOC badge
– A Rolling pin for crushing the biscuits is optional. Roughly crushing to leave larger crumbs seems to work better than finely rolling out biscuits into dust :-)
Coconut milk/Coconut cream can be found alongside the rice pudding, jelly etc. At Pak n Save its in the drinks aisle, along from the breakfast cereal and soymilk etc.
Passionfruit pulp can be found in the baking aisle of supermarkets, by another ingredient used in the recipe Vanilla Essence.
“Nice” biscuits, any similar vanilla-ish biscuit would work in a pinch (although the recipe crumbles the biscuits, no “pinching” involved :-) )
Batter/roll/crunch/crumble the biscuits out for your base. Larger, rougher pieces work better than a fine dust. I use a full packet of “Nice” biscuits along the bottom of the springform pan.
Using an Invercargill Vegan Society membership badge or “coin”, brutally pierce the coconut milk cans open. If you’ve misplaced your INVSOC badge, feel free to use your “carnivore canine teeth” or your Herbivore horn like a Rhinoceros!
WHAT? You’ve filed your horns/claws down in a Hellboy-esque fashion? Ok…..I guess a can opener would work too, if you’re going to be conventional!
Add both cans of coconut cream to your medium sized pot.
Add passionfruit pulp. The plastic lid should twist off easily, no violent actions/can opening required. Add the contents of the plastic jar.
Add 3 Tablespoons of cornflour to thicken the filling mixture.
Add 2 Tablespoons of Agave Nectar/Maple Syrup. Stir well and heat.
Stir well until the mixture is very thick, it will have a similar colour and consistency to custard. If the filling is too thin and liquid, you risk a fatal collapse of your cheesecake when you remove the side of the pan! Thicken well, heating and stirring until the filling is nice and thick. Master chef Dorita recommends stirring on a low heat for 20 minutes.
Evenly add the filling to the crushed/crumbled biscuit base inside the springform pan.
As it cools, the filling will thicken and darken in colour.
I left the cheesecake (base with yellow filling) to cool at room temperature at this point. Adding the topping straight away could cause it to remain hotter for longer.
Now for the final step, the topping!
In your clean, medium pot add a cup of water and about a cupful of Raspberries. I always cheat and use extra berries, a cup and a half :-)
Add 2 Tablespoons of cornflour to thicken the topping and stir well.
You’ll end up with a bright result similar to this :-)
Leave the now completed Raspberry Passionfruit Cheesecake to cool down and set. At this stage you can choose to add decorative berries to the top. They set in stone once the cheesecake is cool. Or alternatively leave it smooth and polished without fruit added to the top.
When its room temperature, you can leave it in your refrigerator to set until the cheesecake is required.
Serve slightly chilled.
To free your cheesecake from the springform pan, FIRST run a “soy margarine” knife under hot water. Then slowly run the now hot knife around the inside edge of the pan. This will separate the cake from the sides of the soon-to-be-removed pan :-)
Now HERE is the interesting step.
Remember, you can always use a fixed pan, and leave the sides in safe, stable uprightness!
But if you’re one of the dangerous ones, who like to live life “off the wall”……..unhinge the springform pan sides and let’s see what happens next! Will your cheesecake stand under its own weight? Did you thicken and stir the hot filling enough? Did it cool down by itself and set? Or will you remove the bracing to see the cake collapse in liquefaction?
You’ll find out soon after hot-knifing the sides of the cheesecake, and then releasing the clasp of the springform pan! :-)
FAIL!
– The filling might not have been stirred to thicken enough, the cheesecake may not have cooled down for long enough
