If you would have asked me two months ago what I miss most in my plant based life, my answer would have been: cheesecake! One of my favourite cakes ever since I tried it for the first time in Israel in 1985. I was hooked from the first bite!

Sure, I’ve had plenty of vegan cheesecakes, at home as well as outdoors, but never a baked New York style cheesecake. Which to me is the real deal.

In fact, I had never even prepared a baked cheesecake at all! It seemed too complicated to me. Instead, I would order one at restaurants if they served any. And every now and then I would buy some at Bagels and Beans. (which is the only place in my vicinity I know of where they have a good cheesecake). It is about the only thing non-vegan I occasionally allow myself to eat. But that guilty pleasure belongs to history as of now!

Because I am confident enough to state here that I nailed it! The perfect recipe to a perfect vegan cheesecake, without the use of cashews and/or tofu. Instead, I use vegan cream-cheese made of oats, crème fraîche made of oats and white beans. Yeah that’s right, white cooked beans from a jar! Un-rinsed to get that extra aquafaba to work its magic as well. Other than that I also use ‘vegan egg powder’ based on lupine flour. After multiple tests and tweaking to get the right consistency, the right baking time etcetera, I can finally say it’s perfect and I am ready to proudly share this delicious recipe with the world.

So my last guilty pleasure came to an end, or maybe I should say non-vegan guilty pleasure. Because let’s face it, this cake contains white sugar. White sugar is something I try to avoid as a rule. But in this particular case I tried to use coconut blossom sugar. Unfortunately that has a considerable effect on the color and makes the cake unappealing. So that won’t do. However, I will continue trying to substitute the white sugar for a more healthy sweetener. Until then I’ll allow myself a guilty pleasure every now and then 😉.

Allow yourself some too and rush to the recipe, because you will want to prepare this a day in advance. That will enhance the flavour and texture.

Good luck and let me know how you did Share your photos, tag us or leave a comment.