Sunday, March 21, 2010

Extreme Dream Cheesecake - The PETA Celebrity Cookbook - p. 110

Filling:
2 - 8 oz. containers plain nondairy cream cheese (While the book recommended Tofutti brand, my rebellious streak kicked in and I used Follow Your Heart brand)
1 c. sugar
Juice of one whole lemon (I used a Meyer Lemon)
1 tsp. vanilla

Crust:
2 c. vegan graham cracker or cookie crumbs
1/8 c. sugar
1/4 c. margarine, softened

For the crust, combine the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and margarine and mix well.  Transfer to an 8 inch pie pan, and press the dough firmly against the sides and bottom of the pan.  Chill for 30 minutes in the fridge.

Preheat oven to 350.  Blend the nondairy cream cheese, sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla.  Pour into the graham cracker crust.  Place the entire cheesecake in the oven and bake for 60 minutes.  Allow to cool.

Crib Notes:
When making the crust as per the recipe, the crust was much too dry.  I added quite a bit of extra vegan margarine, perhaps too much.  Oh well!  Overall, the taste of the vegan cheesecake was good, but the texture was whack.  The cheesecake never set properly - when I pulled it from the oven, the cheesecake was still a bubbling, gloopy mess.  The crust was on the well-done side, so I had no choice but to remove the cake from the oven, and I had hoped that when it cooled it would congeal (the word "congeal" may or not be an appropriate culinary term, haha), but it never did.

MH enjoyed the taste a lot - it was quite citrusy, as far as cheesecakes go.  In the future, if I were to retry this recipe, I would
a) try using Tofutti brand cream "cheese and/or
b) use less lemon juice
The recipe called for 2 TBL. of lemon juice or the juice of one lemon.  As I squeezed my lemon, it definitely seemed like much more than 2 TBL. of juice was produced.  So maybe too much liquid was the reason why the cake never set this time.



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