Wow! Who would have ever thought that something as ugly as a cashew could be transformed into a decadent desert with a little fungal help! If you haven’t made the time to brew up some Rejuvelac so you can make a fermented nut cheesecake, well, you just haven’t lived! Really. I’ve now made three and everyone that’s tried it has nothing but praise (they like it – really).
After starting my first batch of Rejuvelac (a couple weeks ago), I did a little research to figure out what to do with it. When Googling around, I found The Raw Seed website. Hidden on that sight is an amazing fermented nut cheesecake recipe! It’s got some great pictures too, so I highly recommend stopping by (The Raw Seed Cheesecake). They’ve also got some videos there, but I still haven’t found the time to watch them all the way through. I guess this one is so easy that the videos should have been about 90 seconds long!
Wha-da-ya-think?
Does that look good or what? That was the bulk of my lunch today! Yes, I know it’s a quarter of the cake! But it’s only an 8 inch spring-form. This slice is probably about the size of a slice of ‘real’ cheesecake you’d get at The Cheesecake Factory. It’s also loaded with oils so I give it an A+ for keeping me warm in the winter.
This is the third one that I’ve made so far and I’ve already been asked to make a fourth – for a wedding party (of all events). So I’ve learned a bit about it that I can actually share – more than simply the pictures. So here it is…
Process (Recipe):
To start, you’ve got to create the Rejuvelac. The Raw Seed has a little video that outlines the process, or you can look back at what I did here and here. Making good Rejuvelac is key to making this work.
I’ve also soaked 2 cups raw cashews over the day and rinsed them well.
Now, following the recipe outlined at The Raw Seed, I take the two cups soaked cashews, the teaspoon nutritional yeast and 2/3 cup Rejuvelac and blend until it’s smooth as butter.
This is what you see in the bowl. I took the picture as I was wrapping it up so it can ferment for the next 24 hours. I’ve also got an old nut milk bag that I’m wrapping it in so as to keep bad stuff out.
The next day, it looks like this:
Notice all the little ‘air’ pockets around the edge of the bowl. The normally heavy feeling ground up nuts are light a fluffy. It’s spongy!
Next, we process up the crust.
If you look closely, you’ll notice that I’ve got ½ cup almonds, ½ cup pecans, ¼ cup raisins, ½ teaspoon vanilla powder, 1 Tablespoon honey, 1 Tablespoon coconut oil and more than a pinch of salt. This all gets blended in the food processor until it starts to stick. At that point, you press it into a oiled spring-form pan. Looks something like this:
Now we get out the blender to mix the fermented nuts with 2/3 cup liquid coconut oil, ½ cup honey, ½ teaspoon vanilla powder and 1/8th teaspoon salt. Even though the nuts are light a creamy, it’s hard work for the blender to mix. Turn it on and do just that. It’s going to end up rather thick, so you’re not going to get it to run out of the blender. This is something that you’re going to have to dig out.
Once you’ve got it all in the spring-form, smoothen the top and give it a gentle giggle to help it settle. You don’t want air pockets in the cake. Here is what you should end up with.
The pecans give the crust a strong appeal that’s complemented well with caramel. If you have a little latte syrup sitting around, drizzle a bead back and forth over the top as an accent. When I did this, everyone marveled at the presentation for they don’t know me as a chief at all!
This is another desert that I highly recommend. And it’s much easier on the digestion than you might think when you think about eating a cake of all nuts. The Fermentation really changes this. After having tasted fermented cashews, I’ll probably never want them any other way.
Let me know what you think!
Update:
Ok. I’ve made a few slight modifications to this cheesecake recipe. For starters, I’m now using a full size cheesecake spring-form. The little 8 inch just doesn’t cut it. It’s not BIG enough!
For the crust – I really like pecans and dates. The flavors seem to go better with the fermented cashews. I spell it out like this:
Filling:
- 3 cups cashews (soaked for 8 hours)
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 cup rejuvelac
Split into two halve and blend each half independently. 3 cups cashews is too much for a blender. 1 cup is not enough, so look at running almost two cups, remove a cup or more and then add the remaining nuts. Place this mixture in a bowl, cover with cheesecloth (or nut milk bag) and let stand for 24 hours.
Crust:
- 1 cup almonds (soaked overnight and let sit)
- 1/1 cup pecans straight from the freezer
- About 6 large medjool dates (makes for a sweeter crust)
- ½+ tsp vanilla powder (get the best you can find)
- ½ tsp sea salt
- 1 Tbsp melted coconut oil
Run it in the food processor like shown above and press it into the pan.
Back to filling:
- 1 cup melted coconut oil
- 2/3rds cup honey
- 1 tsp vanilla powder
- 1/8th tsp Sea Salt
- Plus fermented cashews
Melt the coconut oil and place it on the blender first. Add honey and then the fermented (bread dough) cashews (then add the remaining ingredients). The order is pretty important. You want the oil first so that as things get spinning it get lubricated. Placing the cashews in first makes it really hard for the blender to suck in the oil.
I guess my spring-form pan is about 12 inches. The resulting cheesecake will have a very thin crust and a cake that’s a bit over an inch high. It’s perfect for the person that complains about large treats after dinner. Just cut it small and it won’t seem too big to anyone!
