Chilled vegan strawberry cheesecake slice

I have mentioned before that I rarely eat bananas plain. I like them frozen and whizzed into banana soft serve, or dried and turned into banana chips, or combined with peanut butter...but in their original form, I am not so keen.

(Except, of course, when they were only available at $14 / kg after Australia's banana plantations had been ruined by cyclones. Then I developed a sudden craving for them.)

With strawberries, it is the opposite. I love them plain and fresh,  but am not a big fan of strawberry flavoured products. Strawberry ice cream has always been my least favourite flavour. Strawberry jam seems boring. Strawberry yoghurt tends to taste artificial.

However.

Here we have a strawberry cheesecake slice and technically I don't like cheesecake either. Strawberry cheesecake should, by rights, have me running away at great speed.

But I'm not running. I loved this slice more than I can say. It has the flavours of fresh strawberries with the silky smoothness of a chilled cheesecake and a base that seems to pull it all together.

It is a million miles away from the strawberry cheesecake you might find in the frozen section of the supermarket. No artificial strawberry flavours here; indeed, no artificial flavours at all. The ingredients are predominantly raw and yet again (I may be getting obsessed...) there is that magical dessert ingredient - avocado.

For some added fun, this recipe was also largely born of imagination. I started off with a vague notion of making Gena's raw strawberry vanilla pudding from Choosing Raw, which was the first time I had seen avocado featured in a strawberry dessert. Between reading her post and making this slice, I started thinking about a strawberry version of Hannah's raw chocolate brownies from Wayfaring Chocolate. Then I thought back over my raw vegan cheesecake experimentation.

My mind whirred happily for a week or so, and this is what it gave me.

Chilled strawberry cheesecake slice

Inspired by Gena's raw strawberry vanilla pudding and Hannah's raw chocolate brownies

Vegan

Makes 16 small slices

Print recipe

Ingredients

For the base

1/2 cup raw cashews

1/3 cup rolled oats

1/4 cup desiccated coconut

1/8 cup agave (or maple syrup)

Up to 1 tbsp water, as needed (I used about 2/3 tbsp)

For the topping

2 small avocados (mine weighed 110g each with peel and stone)

12 medium strawberries, washed and de-stemmed

1/4 cup agave (or maple syrup)

1/8 cup desiccated coconut

1 tsp vanilla

Method

Line a loaf tin or square baking tin with baking paper (if you use a square baking tin you will probably only cover ~2/3 of the tin, but that doesn't matter).

To prepare the base, combine all of the base ingredients except the water in a food processor. Process until fine. Add up to 1 tbsp water, as needed, to form a slightly sticky mixture that is starting to clump together to form a ball.

Press the base mixture into your prepared tin, using a spatula or your fingers to spread it out evenly. Set aside while you make the topping.

To prepare the topping, combine all of the topping ingredients in a food processor. Process until smooth. Spread over the base.

Set in the freezer for at least 4 hours before slicing. Store in the freezer but bring slices to room temperature 5 - 10 minutes before serving.

*I had enough topping to cover the base and still have some spare (a small bowlful). I ate the spare topping plain but you could make a thicker topping on the slices if you preferred.

I was initially worried about the colour of these, as they were a bit murkier before being chilled. However, the time in the freezer turned them to the pink shown here (how? I don't know) and in the end there was no hint of avocado in colour or in taste.

With that said, these aren't as sweet or creamy (in a dairy sense) as regular cheesecake and I can imagine that they might not appeal to those who do like traditional, sweeter cheesecake products. Mr Bite was less enamored with them than I was, although this was partially due to the base. He doesn't like nuts, coconut or oats (I know...) so that dislike was not particularly surprising.

As for me? I am smitten.

What do you think of strawberry products and desserts? Yes or no?

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