Mango season is almost here! If you live in the Southern Hemisphere that is. Sweet juicy mangoes are such a treat, and luckily for us here in New Zealand, our friendly Australian cousins have a knack at growing them rather well. I normally try to buy our food as local as possible (food miles), but given these are from just over the ditch, I make a small exception once or twice each summer.
I’m excited about you trying this particular recipe too, as it’s the first I’ve shared from our lovely cookbook WHOLE! It was such a treat to be a part of such an amazing book, along with nine other healthy foodie ladies from around NZ. If you haven’t yet got yourself a copy (it’s beautiful, hard-cover, and will definitely make a welcome addition to your recipe book collection), you can read more about it here.
Back to this cheesecake. If you’ve been with me a while you’ll know I’m a sucker for a good raw vegan cheesecake. Who wouldn’t be once you’ve tried one? Previous dalliances include this Summer Strawberry Cheesecake, Creamy Lemon Cheesecake, Lucuma and Citrus Cheesecake and Salted Caramel Cheesecake. Case in point.
As with all my recipes, this beauty is full of healthy plant-based whole food goodness. Which means it’s vegan, dairy free, with no refined sugars, as well as gluten free too. So if you’ve been delving into my Raw Beetroot Salad or Pesto Potato Salad for dinner recently, you definitely now deserve a serving of this!
Why you won’t get sick with turmeric
Now that I’ve lured you in with the power of rhyme, I’ll let you in on the other secret ingredient in this cheesecake – turmeric. I’ve raved about this yellow tuberous beauty before in this super easy 4-ingredient Turmeric Butter. But as a quick recap, think super high in antioxidants, a fantastic anti-inflammatory medicinal food (good for any illness or even just regular body healing) and helps lower cholesterol and nurture a healthy heart. You can’t always find the fresh root, but powdered is widely available so I’ve used that in this recipe.
So scour your local markets and when mangoes rear their lovely golden heads, pop this cheesecake on your to do list! The perfect dessert for summer at a pot luck with friends.
If you try it out, let me know! Leave a comment below, and take a picture and tag it @begoodorganics and #begoodorganics on Instagram – I’d love to come find you and see what you come up with.
Thanks sweet friends, and here’s to another amazing weekend!
PS If you like this recipe I’d love you to share it on Pinterest (hover over any of the images and click Pin It), Facebook or Twitter too (hit the buttons up top). Thanks a bunch, you’re amazing!
Please note – if you are wanting to meet any of the specific dietary requirements below, please read my recipe notes.
Ingredients
Base
- 1¼ cups almonds*
- ½ cup shredded coconut
- ¾ cup dates
- Zest of 1 lemon
- ½ tsp vanilla powder
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- 1 Tbsp coconut oil melted
Filling
- 2 ½ cups cashews soaked 2 hours, drained and rinsed
- 1 cup coconut milk
- ¾ cup coconut oil melted
- Juice and flesh of ½ lemon
- ¼ cup coconut nectar
- 2 Tbsp cacao butter melted
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- 2 cups mango flesh fresh if possible, chopped
- 2 tsp turmeric
Instructions
Base
- To make the base, blend almonds and shredded coconut in a food processor until well chopped but still with some chunky texture.
- Add dates one by one while motor is still running. Then add remaining base ingredients and blend until well combined.
- Pour the mixture into a 20cm spring form cake tin with the base of the tin lined with baking paper. Press the mixture down with a spatula until firm and flat. Place in the freezer to firm.
Filling
- Blend all the filling ingredients, except mango and turmeric, in a food processor or blender until completely smooth, scraping down the inside of the food processor a few times to remove lumps. The mixture should be completely smooth like a thick cream.
- Pour half of the cream mixture into a bowl, and set aside. Then, add the mango and turmeric to the remaining cream mixture in the blender, and process until well combined.
- Remove base from freezer and, using one quarter of the plain cream mixture, dollop generous spoonfuls on top of the base.
- Repeat this with dollops of one quarter of the mango mixture, then continue layering in this way until both mixtures have been used up.
- Using a chopstick, swirl figure-eight patterns through the mixture to create a swirling effect between the two creams. Don’t over-swirl or you will end up with a completely light orange cheesecake.
- Place in the freezer overnight. An hour before you want to serve it, remove from the tin and place in the fridge. This helps to maintain its lovely firm texture, similar to an Italian semifreddo. You can also slice the cake and return to the freezer in individual slices to remove from the freezer as you need.
Recipe Notes
- Make it nut free: use sunflower or watermelon seeds instead of cashews.
- If you don’t have cacao butter, you can replace this in the filling with an extra 1/4 cup of coconut oil.
- If you have a springform cake tin like me you only need to line the base for this cake. If you have a silicon tin you don’t need to line it at all. If however you have a regular tin that’s not springform, you’ll need to line the base and sides so you can remove the cake – lining with cling form wrap in this instance works best. Please though if you do choose to use cling wrap, source a biodegradable version – it’s not my favourite kitchen product and I try to minimise wherever possible!
Images by Bronwyn Kan.
