As mentioned in my post about My Cherry Fun with the abundance of cherries we had in the garden this was quite a busy day making things with cherries. This lovely cheesecake is dairy-free but does have eggs in it so is not suitable for vegans. I have tried to keep this recipe as low GL as possible and free from any artificial sugars so it is as healthy as possible. This is a great recipe for those of you that have a sweet tooth and also if you have never tried a baked cheesecake then this is the perfect place to start.
Cherry Cheesecake
Serves 8-12
Base Ingredients
3 tbsp Coconut oil
140g Nairns oat & fruit biscuits
1 tbsp Agave nectar
Filling Ingredients
200g Stoned cherries plus a few extra for decoration
225g Xylitol
500g Soya cream cheese
200g Coconut yoghurt
1 tbsp Cornflour
2 Eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
Agave sugar for dusting
Method
Pre-heat oven to 160C/Gas mark 3. Grease a springform 20cm/8in cake tin with coconut oil. Crush biscuits to small pieces, you can do this in a food processor but I prefer to put them in a bag and hit them with a rolling pin. Not only does this give you slightly large bits of biscuit but it also helps to get out any tension! Melt the coconut oil with the agave nectar and mix into the biscuit until it is evenly damp. Tip biscuit mix into cake tin and press down so it is flat. Bake for 10 minutes and leave to cool. Lower oven temperature to 150C/gas mark 2.
Place pitted cherries and 85g sugar in a food processor and blend until smooth. Put this mixture in a small saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for around 5 minutes, or until it forms a thick syrup.
Put soya cheese, Cornflour, eggs, remaining xylitol, vanilla and half the coconut yoghurt in an electric mixer and blend until smooth. Spoon half this mixture into cake tin on top of base, then spoon half the cherry mix on top of this. Spoon the remaining cheesecake mix on top and use a fine skewer to mix the cherry syrup through the cake. Bake for 45 minutes, then turn off the oven and leave to cool for 30 minutes.
When cool, spread the remaining coconut yoghurt over top of cheesecake, then pour the remaining cherry syrup into the middle. Use a fine skewer to pull the cherry syrup out into points, wiping the skewer each time. Place the remaining cherries round the edge, dust with agave sugar. Chill until time to serve.
