"For the aspiring artisinal vegan cheesecake craftsperson"

Paris is very unveganfriendly, which I probably should have foreseen. It is also very expensive. I am also the only vegan I know here. All in, this is not the place to keep working on the quest for the perfect vegan cheesecake.

I will be back in Toronto in a month or so, which will make procuring ingredients much easier. I'll also be staying at la casa del Mayerson again, which means free groceries magically appearing every Saturday morning. And I have a vegan friend whose birthday is a few weeks after I get back. He doesn't like sweets much, but I'm almost certainly making him a cheesecake anyway.

In summation: Toronto is as good for the aspiring artisinal vegan cheesecake craftsperson as Paris is bad.

Here's what I have planned...

1) A keylime and blueberry cheesecake, like the ones I used to make for bridal showers with my mom - except keylime instead of kiwi for the tartness - using YoSo keylime creamcheese spread and YoSo blueberry yogourt, blueberry pie filling and lime flowers, a hommage to the kiwi flowers I spent so much time on when I was a kid.

2) A raw cheesecake, for which I have seen instructional videos on youtube. Isa Chandra Moskowitz recently blogged about them, reminding me that there were vegan cheesecake peaks that I had yet to ascend. She made a strawberry one, but I'm thinking cherry and raspberry. I'll also forgo the fluffy topping, because cheesecake can be too sweet, and maybe skip the crust because a less than awesome crust can ruin an otherwise yummy cake.

Should be caloric and divine!

Finally!

After months of pondering and reflecting, I finally took on the cheese-free classic New York style cheesecake in honour of my roommate's birthday.

I followed the instructions to the letter, with some necessary substitutions:

Vegan margarine instead of butter

• I used Fleishman's unsalted pareve margarine, which is also kosher.
  

4 tubs of soy cream cheese

• Tofutti brand is yummier, but YoSo is better for you. I used one Tofutti and three YoSo. I might do 2 and 2 if I was making this again.

2 tubs of soy sour cream

• I only found YoSo and was short on time. No complaints.

4 egg-equivalents of boxed egg replacer powder

• Not sure how flax or bananas would work in this recipe. Would probably recommend the route I took.

While in the oven, the cheesecake bubbled like it was boiling. That made me quite unhappy, but it seems to have settled in the end. I didn't put it back in the oven once the sour cream topping was on it because I didn't want it to all bubble into itself again. I'd recommend that you chill this overnight in the fridge because it took a while to solidify. It has kept in the fridge for over a week with no problem.

Cheesecake: One Step Back, Two Steps Forward

I've been neglectful because I have been busy and/or broke. I am currently not very busy and very, very broke. But there's a light at the end of this tunnel. I am so broke (and destined for world travel) that I am moving back in with my parents for the month of October. Rather than looking at the broad range of pros and cons of this action, I'll focus on what matters: The food.

Groceries are free at Casa del Mayerson and I think my mom is secretly excited to play around more with food in the name of her vegan first born. I predict the pricey and delicious ingredients to veganize a classic cheesecake will be easily acquired. I will also have the benefit of my mother's decades of cheesecake making experience.

Another tidbit of good news: There is now an alternative in the Canadian market to Tofutti brand cream cheese and sour cream, which are laden with trans fats. Yoso Spreadables are trans fat free and I've heard they are super tasty. (They are, however, higher in fat than their Tofutti counterparts. Oh well.) There is also a key lime flavour that could be an amazing addition once the basic recipe has been perfected. Yoso also makes a sour cream. Their fruit yogourt is fantastic, and is something I might consider using instead of (or on top of) the sweet sour cream topping of a NY style cheesecake.

Exciting times indeed.

Cheesecake: Intermission Reflections

In terms of the filling, I feel that maybe I have reached the pinacle of the recipe that I have been using. Frankly, I am not satisfied. It is good, but it is not great. It is a tofu pie posing as a cheesecake. The quest is not over.

I was thinking about increasing the cream cheese to a full container and playing around with the texture by using the freezer. The plan was to make three small crustless cheesecakes: one made with previous frozen the pressed tofu; one that is frozen once it is made, and then thawed; and one control cheesecake following the recipe that I have used to this point. This will happen at some point in the name of science!

My mom and I used to make amazing New York style cheesecakes for showers. It occurred to me that attempting to veganize her recipe might be a worthwhile, if not expensive, endeavor.

I decided a few days ago that the next time I am with someone who orders dairy cheesecake, I will ask for a bite. (Ethically, I feel that I am not doing anything that leads to animal suffering and I will save my friend some calories. I will get indigestion, but I will gain insight into the art of cheesecake.)

It was a friend's birthday today, and we did cake at a local cafe. Everyone ordered cheesecake, so I had a bite of a creme brulee cheesecake, a caramel brownie explosion cheesecake and a blueberry cheesecake. When I got home and saw the remaining sliver of cake two, I grew angry. The flavour and texture are still both light years away from the deliciousness of dairy cheesecake. I know that the flavour of meat substitutes is probably not nearly as satisfying as real meat, but I feel it should be more possible to realistically imitate dairy.

Determined to improve, I spent some time on the Kraft Canada Philadelphia Cheesecake Centre. It turns out that the recipe I have been using is not nearly the same composition as a classic dairy cheesecake. For the next attempt, I am going to bite the bullet and make a cake made almost entirely of dairy substitutes. Stay tuned...

Cheesecake: Round 2-The Taste Test

This cake is absolutely delicious. The top few mm are firmer and the rest is firm and creamy.

Missteps:

The crust is hilarious and sort of ruins the cake, I think. It is not terrible, as it is made of three ingredients that are all quite edible on their own. It is just not delicious, which is the ultimate goal of a cheesecake.

The one lemon was not enough for a tripled recipe.

The half package of cream cheese was absorbed by the tripled recipe and offered no noticeable flavour enhancement while still contributing 22.5 g of fat.

(The absence of extra firm silken tofu is clear, but after a few days in the fridge is stopped mattering. After a cost/benefit analysis, I think I will continue to use the $1.50 tofu for future attempts.)

The texture still is not right, but I do not think that the tofu texture is the problem. An ingredient, a step or a technique is missing...

Next time:

• Make a more appropriate crust;
• Use more lemon;
• Forget the cream cheese; and
  
• Do something (?) to improve the texture.
  

Cheesecake Round 2-The Filling

I had not been able to find extra firm silken tofu anywhere since the first cake. The local Korean grocery store has a great selection of silken tofu, but firmness was not specified. With some help from the owner, I decided to buy the six blocks of regular silken tofu for $1.50. (This entire cheesecake quest is sort of out of my budget...)

Using the same recipe as last time, only tripled, I whipped up a batch of batter so huge that it barely fit in the magic bullet blender. I made three modifications to the recipe. I only had one lemon so used as much zest and juice as I could grate/squeeze from it. Also, as decided after the first attempt, I had bought some vegan cream cheese for this cake. Some quick math determined that a full containter would have added 55 g of fat. I bit the bullet and added half the container. I baked the cake for an hour instead of 30 minutes because I left it in the oven for longer with the last cake and was happy with the results.

I put this one in the fridge overnight, pleased with how much closer this attempt had clearly come.

Cheesecake: Round 2-The Crust

I had some time to kill one morning before I left to start my day, so I decided to make a cheesecake appropriate crust. We did not have any graham crackers, and I try not to use honey anyway, so I had to get creative. I read two different recipes at fatfreevegan.com, which can be seen here and here. Surveying what we had in our pantry, I took the stale Fig Newton style cookies and threw them into the magic bullet. When I realized that there were not enough crumbs, I ground up some Nature's Path Heritage Flakes. There was absolutely no measurements used. We had very little soy milk and no juice other than my roommate's tomato. My options were water or ginger beer. I decided that the ginger would give it a warmth reminiscent of honey, so I poured it into the bowl. I mixed it together and pushed it into a springform pan that I had greased with Earth Balance margarine. Although I am not sure why, I made the crust so that it went about half way up the pan on the edges. I threw it into the fridge and left for the day.

When I got home from the daily grind and grocery shopping, I threw it into the oven at 350 for ten minutes and then let it cool before filling it.