Cheesecake

Growing up, cheesecake was always a staple in our house.  My mother, a former New Yorker, was (and still is) a cheesecake expert.  It has to have the right taste, texture and “style”.  She expects a lot from her cheesecake.

So I knew this cheesecake had to be good enough to pass her criteria.  No cashew cheesecake for her.  You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool my mother with “fake” cheesecake.

And speaking of fooling people….

Years ago, when I was teaching, I became good friends with a few of the other teachers …who  liked to prank each other.  One evening while working late at the school, the fourth grade teacher and myself decided to play a little joke on the kindergarten teacher.

She had invented a mythical dinosaur named Teddy for her class who was always watching to make sure the kids were following the rules, behaving themselves, and being kind to others.  Kinda like the elf on the shelf…a snitch.

We decided to bring Teddy to life.  We enlarged and traced the only picture of a dinosaur we could find in our rooms, which happened to be a T-rex head. Then we got out our markers, colored, cut and taped “Teddy” to a yard stick.

For the next few days, we took turns making Teddy appear in her classroom windows whenever we had a free moment and her back was conveniently turned.  The kids were having Teddy sightings right and left, which was kind of puzzling her since up to that point, she had been the only one to actually “see” him.

“There’s Teddy!” they would scream, pointing to the door, and we would run like crazy, ducking into the nearest stairwell or empty classroom, laughing ourselves silly.

She finally tumbled to us though, and one afternoon she showed up and demanded that we make an appearance in the gym to reassure her class and one girl in particular that Teddy was a friendly dinosaur.  Seems we actually scared one of the little tykes, and she was afraid Teddy was going to gobble her up.

In retrospect, maybe we shouldn’t have gone with the yellow eyes and blood-stained teeth.  One step too far.

Ingredients:

• 1  1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (from my Graham Cracker Granola recipe)
• 1/4 cup ground walnuts (NOT the salted kind.  I use raw, but roasted is fine)  Measure after turning them to crumbs.
• 4 Tablespoons of (vegan) butter, melted
• 1 (8oz) package of cream cheese (I use Kite Hill because it is my all time favorite)
• 1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons of silken tofu
• 1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons of monkfruit
• 1 teaspoon lime juice
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. In a small bowl, combine the graham cracker crumbs, walnuts and butter and mix with a fork till it resembles wet sand.  Line 24 mini-muffin tins with paper cups and press a spoonful of the mixture into each cup (I wear gloves and use my fingers).  You can choose to press the crust up the sides of the cup or just keep it in the bottom.
3. In a blender ( handheld beaters are fine here too) combine the cheese, tofu,  monkfruit, lime juice and vanilla until smooth and creamy.  Take a taste and you can add more monk fruit if you like really sweet cheesecake, but I add fruit to the top of mine, so I don’t like it to be too sweet.
4. Spoon some of the filling over or into the crusts, then bake for 12 minutes.
5. Remove from oven and allow to cool, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least a few hours to allow it to firm up.  Add toppings and serve.

Enjoy!