Happy Friday, guys! At last!! What a week, eh?!! I don’t know about you, but ours was pretty exhausting and I just need to lie down in the sun (if only the English weather would cooperate!) If you are planning a little get together with friends, a small garden party or something of the sort, I may have just the recipe for you.
I’ve been thinking of doing this recipe for a while now, but I was sort of missing one crucial component for the flavours to truly sing in unison… Then I saw rhubarb at my local greengrocers et voila – I knew I was onto something gooooood. I only just photographed this puppy yesterday and I was going to share a different recipe with you today, but then I was too excited to wait! This insanely indulgent cheesecake has it all, it’s creamy and sweet and a little sour and a little (or a lot) spicy. If you have any white chocolate, ginger and rhubarb fiends in your life (vegan or not), make it for them this instant. They will want to dive into it head first, promise 😛 ! The white chocolate and ginger flavour combo is inspired by a particular non-vegan (sadly) cheesecake that I used to enjoy at Wagamamas. I miss it so much that I’ve decided to recreate these flavours in a plant based version. And I did, and it was nice, but it was missing a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’ and I couldn’t quite figure it out. And then I had a close encounter with ruby red rhubarb in my local grocery store, it was so pretty and it got my brain cells ticking. Funnily enough, I used to hate rhubarb as a child – mainly because the cooks at my kindergarten used to brutally overcook it and serve it to us as a stewed fruit kinda drink. It was super sour, stringy and just plain awful. It’s funny that if you put your mind to it, you can always turn a flavoursome vegetable (yes, it is!) into a bland pile of meh. Anyways, I digress… The moment I saw these beautifully bright red stalks, I knew they would look stunning against white cheesecake and their sour notes would cut through the richness of the white chocolate cream underneath perfectly. I was sold and the test cook totally confirmed my intuition. Moments like this are when recipe development feels like the best job in the world, when suddenly all the pieces of the puzzle come together neatly. I really needed that as, if I’m honest, I’ve struggled a little with work-life balance lately and I’ve been grappling with a lot of self-doubt. I’m working on it, but some days I am winning more than others. Let’s just say that yesterday was a really good day!
62 g / 5 tbsp coconut oil 300 g / 10.5 oz vegan biscuits (GF if needed)*
CHEESECAKE MIXTURE
100 g / 3.5 oz raw cacao butter 240 ml / 1 cup almond milk (or any plant milk)** approx. 180 ml / ¾ cup maple syrup, adjust to taste 300 g / 2 and 1/3 cups raw cashews (soaked overnight) 2½ tsp vanilla extract 4-5 tsp freshly grated ginger, adjust to taste 2 tbsp lemon juice
ROASTED RHUBARB
200 g / 3.5 oz fresh rhubarb 2 tbsp coconut sugar (or maple syrup), (optional) juice of 1 orange ½ tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp cornflour / cornstarch (optional) chopped pistachios, to decorate (optional)
ROASTED RHUBARB CHEESECAKE MIXTURE
