This is just one of those recipes that comes along, out of the great blue yonder, that catches the eye and demands to be made. This floated by via a recommendation from Yolanda at the wonderful Byzantine Flowers blog. There are millions of recipes hovering around out there, but only a small minority grab me and really get my creative juices flowing. I like something a little bit different, something challenging and new. When I saw that this cheesecake had either kale, beetroot leaves or spinach in it, I knew I’d discovered a new dessert for me to play with. I’m strange like that!!
MERCI CHEF!
We are in veggie heaven at the moment after helping chef strim his garden. To be honest it was more of a wild field than a garden and due to our combined efforts in helping tame his jungle, chef gifted us a serious glut of amazing vegetables from his pristine veg garden (you can see where his priorities lie!).
Chef lives way up in the hills and has a fantastic garden that he and his Zimbabwean wife, Estele, take magnificent care of. Estele is a natural with the good earth and can grow things that just shouldn’t grow in these temperate parts. Chef is a proud frenchman and quite handy with a strimmer and mandolin. Thanks to them we are now the proud owners of literally bin bags full of incredibly sweet spinach, fiery mint, intense chives, vibrant cabbage and some of the most vivid carrots. You may be seeing more of these ingredients soon (maybe in desserts?!) I have never tasted spinach this sweet (see below), the seeds came from chefs sister in the Loire Valley in France. Ideal dessert spinach I’d say.
Raw desserts normally have a lot of components, but they are easy to get together and require a lot less messing around than normal baking (its not going to sink, burn, crumble, split……etc), it just sits there on the plate looking sexy. I’ve never used pumpkin seeds in a base before and I think they taste even better than nuts. Less fat, more flavour. Seed bases are a winner. The filling is rich and bright green (the spinach doing its thing) and you won’t believe that cream cheese wasn’t added. It’s so smooth and creamy.
Who needs flowers
In the bright, green future, we’ll all be eating these!
Here’s the recipe with a few Beach House additions. I stuck with handfuls, rather than exact measuring, here because its so straightforward and we love getting our mitts involved in cooking!!!
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Avocado, Coconut & Lime Cheesecake (raw, gluten-free, vegan, yum!)
Avocado, Coconut & Lime Cheesecake
The Bits – 6 little cheesecakes or one large one
Crust
4 big handfuls pumpkin seeds
2 big handfuls dates (pitted and soaked in warm water for an hour)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 teas tahini
Pinch sea salt
Filling
2 avocadoes (peeled and stoned)
3 big handfuls spinach leaves (washed)
2 handfuls dates (pitted and soaked n warm water an hour)
125ml (1/2 cup) water/ water from date soaking
3 tbs lime juice
2 tbs coconut flakes/ desiccated
1 tbs coconut oil (melted)
1 tbs maple syrup
1 tsp lime zest
Pinch of sea salt
The pumpkin seed bases
Do It
Using a food processor, pulse the pumpkin seeds, dates, vanilla, tahini and salt together until they start to clump into a ball. Place in the fridge for an hour to firm up.
On a chopping board, using your hands, press the ball down into a flattish sheet (approx 1.5cm thick). Then take a cake/cookie cutter and cut circles. Roll up the leftovers and make another smaller sheet, repeat this until most of the base mix is used (eat the rest. Yum!)
In the mix
Get all of your filling ingredients in your food processor/ blender and blitz up until nice and smooth. Place you cake/ cookie cutter over your bases and spoon in a good layer of mix, using the spoon, even out the mix and make sure it meets the edges (giving you a nice looking, clean edge). Gently pull off the cutter, your cheesecake should look splendid. If not, be more careful with the next one! Repeat until your mix runs out.
As I mentioned, the base can be rolled up into little balls and snacked on at a later date, so no waste here.
Please feel free to play with sizes and shapes. We used this cutter as it makes for a decent dessert size and was handy. The original recipe was more of a cupcake size.
Serve
They don’t last long, for many reasons, the avocado doesn’t help (so creamy!) Serve them immediately with thin slices of lime, bits of coconut or as we did, a sprinkle of coconut flakes and a few pumpkin seeds.
We Love It!
People look quite disgusted when we tell them we’ve been making desserts with spinach in. Hopefully they’ll read this post and have their minds changed, even better, they’ll actually try it for themselves. Vegan desserts are the future, next week, garlic beer! (joking)
Foodie Fact
Coconut oil is an excellent substitute to cooking oils and especially butter. It has been heralded as a ‘superfood’ and it certainly is. The benefits of coco oil are many, for example, it can even be rubbed into your hair and skin giving amazing nutrition to both. Coconut oil is high in saturated fats, but they are mainly lauric acid, which actually helps repair the heart and arteries. These fats also contain micro-biological qualities that fight bad bacteria and fungi in your guts, they also help you absorb many vitamins and minerals. I could go on here……..I’m sure you get the idea. Eat more cocos!
beach house kitchen 