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Gluten-free and Vegan Baked Cheesecake is a delicious and inexpensive dessert.
Vegan Baked Cheesecake is rich, creamy, and perfectly sweet with a little lemon flavor. It’s a very foolproof, easy-to-make recipe, that uses a few simple and budget-friendly ingredients. Vegan Baked Cheesecake makes a beautiful dessert for Easter, or birthdays. And it’s also the perfect treat for a lazy weekend.
I’ve talked about this a few times here, I really suck at baking. So whenever you see a baked recipe on this blog you can be sure, it’s a very-very easy, simple, and beginner friendly one.
Just like this Vegan Baked Cheesecake.
So if you are like me, and not the best baker in the world, you’ll love this recipe!
This cake is somewhere between Käsekuchen, a German style cheesecake, and Túrótorta, a Hungarian cheesecake made out of cheese curds. The crust is crunchy and buttery, and the filling is extra dense, rich, silky, and creamy, with a slight vanilla and lemon taste. Vegan Baked Cheesecake is perfect topped with fresh or frozen fruits, caramel sauce, grated chocolate, or just a simple dust of powdered sugar.
What’s also great about this recipe, that it’s fairly cheap to make. Cashew cheesecake recipes are super awesome, but let’s be honest. They are expensive. Especially if you plan to feed a larger group.
So we use tofu here to make the smoothest, creamiest cheesecake filling of our dreams.
And don’t worry, this cake won’t taste like tofu! Tofu is very mild, so you can enjoy the perfectly sweet vanilla and lemon aroma. In fact, tofu is so mild or neutral in taste, you can go with other flavorings here as well. Try chocolate, pumpkin, berry, banana, or whatever you like!
I wanted to make a gluten-free crust here, so most of you can enjoy this cake. However if you don’t eat GF, or just looking for an even more budget-friendly option, you can simply make a crust out of sugar, graham crackers, and vegan butter. Or you know, use store-bought crust.
Vegan Baked Cheesecake
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 8–10 slices 1x
Ingredients
For the crust
- 1/2 cup/50 g of coconut flour
- 1/2 cup/75 g brown rice flour (or white flour)
- 4 tbsp agave syrup
- 3 tbsp coconut oil, melted
For the filling
- 14 oz/400g tofu (soft or regular)
- 2–3 lemons, juice + zest (or 1/2 cup of lemon juice)
- 1.5 tbsp cornstarch
- 1.5 tbsp coconut flour
- 1.5 tbsp brown rice flour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean powder
- 1/2–1 cup/125-250 g coconut sugar (or white sugar)
- salt
To serve
- fresh fruits (such as strawberries, blueberries, passionfruit)
Instructions
Crust
- Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F.
- In a bowl mix together coconut flour, brown rice flour, agave syrup, and melted coconut oil.
- Lightly grease and dust a springform cake tin (mine is 18 cm/7 inch). I like to also add an extra layer of baking paper to be sure the cake is easy to remove.
- Transfer crust into the tin, and press firmly into the bottom of the tin. Pierce with a fork, then bake for 15 minutes.
Filling
- While crust is baking, prepare filling. Add tofu, lemon juice and zest, cornstarch, coconut flour, brown rice flour, vanilla, and a pinch of salt to a blender, and start to process. Gradually add sugar, until you reach desired sweetness. I personally like to use 1/2 cup/125 gram sugar here, but most people prefer it sweeter. Blend filling until smooth and creamy.
- Pour filling onto the pre-baked crust. Tap the cake firmly on the counter a few times to remove air bubbles.
Baking
- Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until filling sets. Let cool completely, before opening the tin.
- Place cake in the fridge for a couple of hours, then top with fresh fruits to serve. Enjoy!
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 50 mins
Interesting combo of ingredients…those fresh berries are terrific!
Fresh berries make everything look pretty, don’t they? 😉
This sounds lovely. I will make a note of the recipe for the future. I love cheesecake, it’s something I usually pick from when I’m eating out at vegan places (before lockdown, you know), and so I would love to make it at home too.
Hahaha, before lockdown….I can hardly remember those times anymore 😭
I have yet to have a tofu based dessert and this beautiful cheesecake has only piqued my interest.
Tofu is so good in desserts! My fav is silken tofu for sweet things, but regular tofu is lovely too 😉
this was good
I’m glad you liked this 🙂