This has nothing to do with cheese at all, but everyone else who posts recipes on the internet for raw cakes that have a crust or crumb at the bottom and a smooth silky filling on the top seems determined to call them ‘cheesecakes’ and I decided to be a bit of a sheep and not break convention.
It is raw and it is lemony though, wonderfully sharp, tangy, citrusy lemony.
Raw cakes are generally expensive, much more time consuming to make than the name implies and massively calorific.
BUT…!
They last a while because you don’t eat massive pieces because they are rich and full of flavour, the kitchen is a nice place to spend time and they are all good calories!
This cake is really super simple to make, the biggest challenge is finding coconut butter. Depending on where you live it might not be so easy to find it in the shop and even when you do the price is often insane. The best solution is to make your own by throwing some shredded coconut (cheaper and easier to find) into a blender for about ten minutes until it turns into… coconut butter.
Ingredients
- Pitted dates – 175g
- Hazlenuts – 75g
- Coconut oil – 2tbsp
- Cashews – 300g
- Coconut butter – 5tbsp
- Lemons – 2
- Maple syrup – 4tbsp
- Turmeric – 1tsp
Time to not bake!
- Do not preheat your oven 🙂
- Soak the cashews – you can do this overnight in cold water, or if you are not that organised then you can soak them for half an hour in boiled water. Then drain and rinse them before using.
- Put the dates, hazlenuts and coconut oil into a blender or food processor and blitz until you have a sticky paste. This is the base and you should aim to keep a bit of texture and roughness because the filling will (hopefully) be really smooth.
- Press the base firmly into the bottom of a 20cm spring form tin (or whatever you happen to have to hand about that size, just remember if you can’t open the sides then it is best to line whatever you are using to make the cake easier to get out). Put it into the freezer while you make the filling.
- Clean the blender then add the soaked cashews, coconut butter, zest and juice of the lemons, maple syrup and turmeric and pulse until the mixture is smooth and creamy. This is going to take a while, but be patient, it’s worth the wait.
- Pour the filling over the base and leave it to set. You can leave it overnight in the fridge or if you can’t wait that long then about two hours in the freezer will also be fine.
Cover and keep it in the fridge. We have no idea how long you can keep it for because each time we made it we ate it quickly, but at least a few days.