I made this one with Courtney Stuart Laurie, my friend and also a certified holistic nutritionist. If you visit her website at www.smartfuelforyou.com she can school you on all of the reasons why this is good for you. All I know is that this recipe is raw, vegan and refined sugar-free. It is also delicious and is incredibly versatile. I’ve shown it in the photos here made into a small cake, regular sized muffin tins and also mini-muffin tins. If you want to save time, make one big cake but if you prefer bite-sized convenience then go with either the regular muffin tray or mini muffin tray.

Raw Matcha Cheesecake

Prep time: 30 minutes + 4 hours inactive
Cook time: 0 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes + 4 hours inactive
Yield: serves ~12 muffin sized cheesecakes or 1 large 10-inch cake

INGREDIENTS

For the Crust

1 cup dates (soaked for 20 minutes)
¼ hemp seeds
1 ¼ cup walnuts
2 tbsp. shredded coconut
splash of vanilla
pinch of sea salt

For the Filling

3 cups cashews, soaked in water overnight (or minimum 4 hours)
½ cup maple syrup
½ cup melted coconut oil
¾ cup coconut milk (or nut milk of choice)
2 tsp. matcha powder
2 tbsp. fresh mint

Optional Toppings:

Chocolate drizzle
Raspberry sauce
Matcha powder
Crushed walnuts
Fresh raspberries
Fresh mint

DIRECTIONS

Lightly grease either a 10-inch springform pan or a dozen muffin tins with coconut oil and set aside.

Blend walnuts and hemp seeds together in a food processor or blender. Place in a large bowl. Now blend the dates until no large chunks remain. Using your hands, mix blended dates into walnut and hemp seeds. Add in coconut, vanilla, sea salt and mix until evenly combined. Press the crust into the bottom of your springform pan/muffin tins with your fingers to make an even and firmly packed crust. Place in the freezer.

Now it’s time to make the filling. In a blender or food processor combine cashews, maple syrup, coconut oil and coconut milk. Blend thoroughly until you reach a creamy consistency. Pour into the springform pan or muffin tins over top of the crust, filling them up halfway. Place them back in the freezer while you make the last layer. You should have about half of the cashew filling leftover. To make the green layer, simply add the fresh mint and matcha powder to the leftover filling and blend again until smooth. Pour the green layer on top of the white layer and place back in the freezer one last time. They need about 4 hours to firm up completely. Make sure you if you made your cake in a springform pan to remove it while completely frozen! If you let it thaw first and try to remove it from the pan it will crack.

Remove from the freezer about 30 minutes before serving. Decorate with any or none of the toppings listed. Disclaimer: my favourite was with raspberry sauce! All I did was place some frozen raspberries on the stove over medium low heat, breaking them up with a back of a wooden spoon while they heated up. Drizzled it over top and dug right in.