Table of Contents
Raw Cheesecake with Chocolate Ganache Recipe
It is very easy to create metaphors between love and food. Food is divine – an appetizing allegory for love – which is definitely and infinitely delectable. Both are visceral, encompassing and intellectually impossible to reduce down to the sum of their parts. It is all sensory – visual, tactile…gustatory.
And of course, there is nothing sweeter than when love is new! Optimistic, longing, so exciting that there is almost a very physical manifestation of anticipation and desire – you glow, you become animated, more attractive, almost a magnetic force. And then as a relationship develops…becomes more open, there is a gorgeous blooming and lingering…and savoring, in slow motion…. colors become saturated as what you have been anticipating is realized. Life is good. And suddenly new.
**Sigh**
I wanted to make something that paid homage to this love coming to fore.
I think that nothing less than a most decadent dessert will suffice! And while dessert typically ends a meal, this one was inspired by a beginning.
This was all kindled late one night as I was sitting in my kitchen, alone with my cup of tea, daydreaming. Remembering a beginning. And all the excitement and Technicolor dreams that go with it – so I let the daydream wander into freespace and of course, the way that I am, it eventually culminates in…food. I wanted to replicate the waves of emotion that new love brings – the excitement, anticipation, openness, richness. With an element of surprise and unexpectedness. I imagined a marriage of sweet and tart, liquid, luscious, creamy, interrupted only by not-quite-salty punctuations of a crumbly crust and finished – naturally, as if there was a choice – with the unabashed velvet that is chocolate ganache. The beginning of love deserves no less commemoration!
With this much inspiration, I had no choice but to work (late hour be damned), like a woman possessed, to realize this figment of taste in my imagination. In a veritable fugue, I feverishly gather ingredients that I have faith will all come together to make this hyperbolic confection.
Now you have to remember that while I have an uncompromised goal in mind, I work within a modernist design construct of form+function. What does this mean? Well, in a nutshell, that which causes a wanton sensory reaction must also be….healthy. Sounds anti-climactic but think of it in the health as bondage realm. And don’t get me started on raw! Not so anticlimactic now! (wink).
And I laugh, because, really, the best relationships are, well, healthy. Touche. Cliché.
That is where the element of surprise comes in – all this richness and decadence comes not from the common cream but from the coupling of cashews and coconut.
So here are two versions of what I call the Velvet Underground: Raw Cheesecake with Chocolate Ganache. One of them made rosy with raspberries. Because it is, after all, about red hot love.
Take a bite, close your eyes and remember that time. When it all started.
Raw Cheesecake with Chocolate Ganache Recipe
Part 1 – The Crust
Directions
- Process the nuts into small pieces with salt in a food processor.
- Add the dates and process until combined and sticky.
- Press into the lined bottom of a springform pan and refrigerate or freeze until set.
- Make the filling.
Part 2 – The Filling
Ingredients
3 cups cashews
3/4 lemon juice, fresh preferred
1/2 cup agave syrup or maple syrup
3/4 cup coconut oil (must be liquid, place bottle in bowl of hot water if solid)
1 tsp. vanilla
Optional: ½ pint raspberries
Directions
- Cover the cashews in water and soak for about an hour.
- Drain and place in blender with the rest of the ingredients.
- Blend until smooth.
- Taste for preferred sweetness and tartness.
- Pour into prepared springform pan.
- Place in freezer to set.
Part 3 – The Ganache
Ingredients
1 ½ c. grain sweetened chocolate chips
1/4 cup almond milk creamer (or other nondairy creamer)
Directions
- Place chips in a heatproof bowl.
- Slowly heat the almond milk creamer in a pan, take off heat when it simmers.
- Pour over chocolate chips and mix until chocolate is melted.
- Cool for a few seconds while mixing.
- Pour over filling.
- Decorate with fresh berries.
- Place in freezer to set.
- When firm, place in the fridge until ready to serve.
Leave a Review