After much deliberating and Googling I opted for this baked chocolate cheesecake recipe. Primarily because it is a long time since I had made one. I don't make them often but when I do they are spectacular. A deep white chocolate & Baileys affair springs to mind, a particularly good celebration for St.Patricks Day if i'm not mistaken. My thinking was also that the chocolate might make up for the lack of flavour, plus a plain cheesecake maybe a bit too tofu-ey, Is that even a word? Not something I wanted, as I had feeling that it might be a turn off to some family members. My main worry, besides the flavour, or using margarine in the biscuit base was that it had no eggs in the recipe. A regular NY style baked cheesecake, the eggs are the main setting agent and help lighten the mix.
Saturday was a busy day, I went to Holland & Barrett for some vegan friendly cream cheese substitue (£2.85 a 250g tug). Luckily they had one of their 'buy one, get one half price' offers, it was still expensive mind. After watching The Burbs and in the middle of Land Of The Lost I made the bourbon biscuit base. I then went out to Woksoever in Cottingham for a Chinese banquet and some amazing soft shell crab.
Because I couldn't find the silken tofu on Saturday, I rushed out early Sunday morning to buy a couple of packets of Clearsping tofu at Waitrose. The recipe is for a pretty deep fluted flan dish, as the mixture well and truly filled my two inch deep tin. I had a few spoonfuls spare, which I just had to test and well it was like a deluxe chocolate whip, only ten times better than any angel themed pudding from a packet that I fondly remember from our childhood.
Because I was making and serving the cheesecake within a few hours, even with it sitting in the fridge for 30mins, I couldn't chill it down, so it was served warm. The cheesecake purists will probably be up in arms, ok maybe it had the wrong texture. It was like a warm mousse, but it tasted fantastic, seriously chocolaty with a slight tofu back note. Part of this great depth of flavour comes from the making of a chocolate fudge. You take a cup of sugar and caramelise it, add some water and then a 100g of Lindt 70% chocolate. It makes a rich and intense fudge sauce. Once cooled, simply add this to the loosened up cream cheese and blended tofu and then stick it in the oven at 180c. This whole fudge process as far as I know is not part of the usual process of a chocolate cheesecake. For me it definitely helped make it, a cheesecake to rival a full fat traditional cheesecake.
Taking the vegan option isn't cheap, this cheesecake cost me about £10 to make. I dare say it is a lot healthier, a bit less fat, considering its made of tofu/cream cheese instead of a kilo of full fat cheese/ricotta/mascapone...oh and no eggs. It made me laugh, my sister said she liked it, but thought it was too rich and chocolaty. I am kind of thinking this is because her delicate vegan palette isn't used to such flavoursome and decadent desserts. I gave her a glimpse into what she has been missing 51 weeks of the year, when I make my full fat, full cream puddings for our family gatherings.
