Vegan Cheesecake

Missy Wombat's Note:

Found this on alt.food.vegan where it is an adaptation Peter Berleys' 'Lemon Tart with Toasted Almond Crust' from his book, 'The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen'. I haven't tried it but it has excellent reports from the newsgroup.

• Total Time: 50 mins
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 20 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 12-16

Yield: 1.0 tart

Crust

• ½ cup slivered almond
• 2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
• 4 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 cup brown rice flour or 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt

Filling

• 14 ounces coconut milk
• 1 ½ cups water
• 1 cup raw sugar
• 4 tablespoons agar-agar flakes (or nearly 3 tsp agar powder)
• 1⁄8; teaspoon turmeric (don't add more than this as it will affect the taste--it's purely for colour)
• ¾ cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 ½ tablespoons lemons, zest of
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ¼ cup arrowroot

Directions:

1. Preheat to 350°F Lightly grease a 9" tart pan.
2. Mix the ingredients together and press into the bottom of the dish.
3. (It is a dryish mixso you can add more oil although it is not necessary).
4. If you're using a proper metal tart pan, press the dough up the fluted sides.
5. Prick the bottom a few times with a.
6. fork.
7. Bake for approx 20 min, until brown.
8. Let cool before adding filling.
9. Dissolve arrowroot in 1/2 cup of water and set aside.
10. Filling: Mix coconut milk, 1 cup of the water, sugar, agar& turmeric into a saucepan.
11. Simmer until agar dissolves (usually takes between 6-8 minutes for flakes, a. little less time for powder--don't over cook or agar will lose its strength).
12. Stir in the lemon juice, zest& vanilla then bring to a boil.
13. Add the arrowroot/water mixture and boil for one minute.
14. [It'simportant to stir throughout as you don't want the agar to clump up along the bottom of the pan.
15. You'll feel it thicken up when you add the arrowroot.
16. mix.
17. ].
18. Pour into the cooled crust and let firm up before serving.

Reviews

[Chef #771668]

The crust was SOOOO yummy!!! I didn't have agar agar so I tried with gelatine. Since I had difficult time finding how many gelatin leaves I need I just used as many as recommended on the package for the liquid the recipe calls for. The top of filling was some what stretchy, maybe I didn't add enough gelatin? Also,I didn't have turmeric, I used saffron, the color was great. THe cake tasted great. It is more like a lemon tart, which is great, as I love lemon tarts.

[bearhouse5]

My 15 year old son made this for dessert. It came out sort of a cross between a lemon pie and a cheesecake. We didn't have any slivered almonds for the base so he used almond meal and we didn't have enough maple syrup so used golden syrup to make up the difference, but it worked well and was really yummy. We enjoyed it with some tofu cream.

[literal1]

The recipe turned out yummy. It turned out more like a lemon tart than a cheesecake, but still yummy. The crust was delicious.