Dairy free cheesecake recipe

A dairy free cheesecake recipe

This dairy-free cheesecake recipe will really rock your world!

Everyone loves it, so it’s great to serve at a dinner party. People will frankly be amazed, especially if they’ve never had raw food, vegan food or anything in between.

The base of this recipe comes from the Rawtarian’s gorgeous Strawberry Cheesecake recipe. I only changed the crust and some of the filling ingredients.

It’s a bit more involved than my usual recipes as it takes longer than 5 minutes to prepare, but it’s worth it, believe me!

Dairy free cheesecake recipe

Makes one large circular pie, 8 ½ inches/22cm wide, 2 ½ inches/6 cm deep

You will need:

A food processor, or chopper attachment to a hand blender

A good blender, or hand blender (see tips)

Crust ingredients

• 1 cup/180g walnuts
• 1/2 cup/35g cashews
• 1/2 cup/85g dates (pitted, Medjool work best)
• 1/4 cup/15g dried, unsweetened coconut
• 1 pinch sea salt
• Some water (a few tablespoons, see below)

Filling ingredients

• 3 cups/210g cashews, soaked overnight
• 3/4 cup/180ml lemon juice
• 3/4 cup/180ml maple syrup, xylitol, coconut palm sugar, or other preferred sweetener
• 3/4 cup/150g coconut oil (melt in bain-marie, see below)
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup/60ml of water, if necessary to facilitate blending. Use as little as possible (optional)

Strawberry topping ingredients

• 2 cups/260g frozen strawberries
• 1/2 cup/85g dates
• Water for blending (if needed)

How you do it

Put your coconut oil or butter into a bain-marie to melt gently while you prepare the crust (you’ll find a picture of a bain-marie using a saucepan in this recipe).

Toss the nuts, dates and salt into your food processor (Don’t add the coconut!!), and push the button to mix well. Drizzle some water into the processor while it’s spinning, a little at a time, till the dough ‘clumps’ together slightly (usually about 1-2 tablespoons is enough).

Next, get out a pan (eg a cheesecake pan, a glass pan) and sprinkle the coconut on the bottom. This will make it easier to remove the cheesecake as the coconut stops the crust from sticking to the bottom of the pan (thank you Rawtarian for this great tip!). Then press the nuts and date mixture down into the pan to form the crust.

Put the filling ingredients along with the melted coconut oil into your blender. Add a little water if necessary to help it blend (as little as possible, not more than a few tablespoons).

Pour the filling on top of your crust, and pop the cheesecake in the freezer for about an hour to firm it up.

Once it’s firm, blend the strawberries and dates until smooth (add a few tablespoons of water if you need to). Pour this mixture on top of the cheesecake and put it back in the freezer, leaving it for about 5 hours or until it is set.

Remove from the freezer 30 minutes before serving, or eat as it is straight from the freezer. Enjoy!

Rocking Raw Chef tips

• The original recipe uses macadamias instead of cashews for the filling, so you can do this if you prefer a heavier cheesecake.
• If you use a hand blender, you can do it, but you’ll have to blend in batches.
• You can top your cheesecake with fresh strawberries or other berries before serving.
• If you think in principles like I do, you’ll see that from this one dairy free cheesecake recipe you can make all kinds of other cheesecakes. Simply substitute other soft fruit for the strawberries!

Want more recipes like this?

More gorgeous desserts are in my Raw Food Bumper Assortment collection.

Enjoy your rockin’ dairy free cheesecake recipe!

And of course, let me know what you think in the comments!