Vegan Salted Caramel Cheesecake

So I’m a big fan of cooking. I LOVE being in the kitchen! One of my favorite things to do is take my favorite recipes and figure out substitutes - either to make my recipes healthier or vegan! Why vegan? Honestly I’m not entirely sure. I still love meat and dairy, but it’s been a game of mine lately to cook as many vegan recipes as I can. And it’s been SO FUN. For my birthday this year, I decided to make a salted caramel vegan cheesecake and it turned out so much better than my expectations! I based this recipe off of one that I found on a blog called Loving It Vegan. It’s mostly the same, with a few slight adjustments for convenience! I posted pictures on my Instagram and the feedback I got was overwhelming! The people wanted the recipe!

So here we are.

Madeline and I started by throwing the macadamia nuts, coconut, and dates into a food processor. We opted to stick to a coarse grind for this crust, but when I make it again I’ll definitely go with a finer grind! The crust on our first attempt was good, but it’d worth the wait to get a finer ground crust!

As soon as your ‘dough’ is sticky, press it into an even layer in the base of a springform pan! We lined it with parchment paper which I would HIGHLY recommend! The dates can get a bit sticky! As soon as you’re done pressing the crust, throw it in the freezer to set up! I left it for the amount of time it took us to make the filling. WHICH is probably not as long as they’d recommend but we didn’t have any issues with it!

Next comes the filling. This filling is RIDICULOUSLY easy. Throw all of the filling ingredients into your blender and blend it smooth - there’s nothing else to it!

The caramel sauce was BY FAR my favorite part! It’s super easy and SUPER delicious. Basically you just combine the ingredients and simmer it down until it’s caramel color and consistency. My only warning is make sure that you don’t let it burn! As with any kind of caramel, it’s incredibly easy to burn so keep an eye out and make sure you’re stirring the pot regularly!

While we had the salted caramel sauce simmering, we took the cheesecake filling and poured it into the springform pan. Leave it in the freezer (or if you live in MN in the winter - leave it outside) for 2-3 hours to set and then it’s free to serve! Overall - this recipe is SO SIMPLE.

Crust:

1 cup Macadamia Nuts

1/2 cup Pitted Medjool Dates (about 10 dates)

1 cup Dried Dessicated Coconut

Filling:

3 cups Raw Cashews (soaked overnight, drained and rinsed)

3/4 cup Water

3/4 cup Maple Syrup

1/2 cup Coconut Oil (Melted)

1/4 cup Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Caramel:

13.5 oz Coconut milk

2/3 cup Maple syrup

1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

1/4 tsp Sea Salt

I hope you make this and enjoy it! It was definitely a worthwhile adventure and I’m excited that so many of you asked me to share it! Let me know if you choose to make it and what you think!