You all know I’m in love with my vegan cheesecake recipes
But did you also know that I am more recently in love with Flower Powder Natural Food coloring?
Yep it’s true.
Put those two things together and you have these beautiful miniature vegan cheesecakes perfect for spring!
CLICK HERE FOR THE MINIATURE CHEESECAKE PAN
I’ve been experimenting lately with these flower powder natural food colors I picked up from Suncore Foods
*Not sponsored
I am really digging the vibrant colors and fact that they are all natural is so incredibly exciting!
Of course if you did not want to buy them for yourself, as they are very pricey at almost $20 per bag
You could always use a tiny drop of whatever food coloring you are using for the same effect
The flower powder does however impart a subtle nuance of whatever powder you are using
The Hibiscus Flower Powder makes the cheesecake taste a bit fruity and almost reminded me of a raspberry cheesecake
The Blue Butterfly Pea Flower Powder is very subtle and reminded me of roses somehow!
I was using the colors very sparingly since I notice when they bake they intensify almost 4 times!
The Wolfberry Goji Berry Powder was gorgeous in the cheesecake batter but for some reason when it baked it disappeared!
So for that one I think that 1 teaspoon would have been better than the 1/4 teaspoon I used for the others
The Carrot Powder was awesomely vibrant and did not impart much flavor at all
My base cheesecake recipe which is the starting point for all my cheesecake recipes is perfect all by itself
So again if you want to forgo the flower powders and the food colors all together
By all means you don’t have to get all fancy like I did!
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL YOUTUBE VIDEO TUTORIAL FOR HOW TO MAKE THESE ASSORTED SPRING CHEESECAKES!
*I have to make a note about the measuring of the recipe ingredients listed below
If you have a scale that would be the best, because I have found that the measure of cornstarch will vary severely from person to person and even from brand to brand!
If you are too heavy handed with the cornstarch in any custard recipe
(And don’t forget cheesecakes are merely baked custards!)
You will get a very rubbery result!
I will always recommend that as bakers we have a scale on hand to measure the more sensitive ingredients like cornstarch especially
CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON MEASURING
- For the Crust:
- 8ounces (approximately 1½ cups) of your favorite cookie crushed to fine crumbs
- 4 Tablespoons Vegan Butter Melted
- For the Cheesecake Batter:
- Tofutti Cream Cheese *see note above 16ounce (454g)
- Granulated Sugar 1 cup (200g)
- Vegan Butter melted 2 Tablespoons (28g)
- Salt ¼ teaspoon
- Vegan Lactic Acid or Apple Cider Vinegar ½ teaspoon
- Cornstarch 4 Tablespoons (32g)
- All Purpose Flour 3 Tablespoons (24g)
- Plant Milk * I use soy milk 6fl oz (177ml)
- Vanilla Extract 3 teaspoons (15ml)
- Flower Powder *optional- I used ¼ teaspoon per each cup of cheesecake batter.
- Prepare the crust for this cheesecake by placing your cookies in a food processor and grind to fine crumbs
- Add the melted vegan butter and pulse until the mixture resembles wet sand
- Press this mixture into the bottom of your greased & parchment lined 7" cake pan OR the individual miniature cheesecake pan then freeze while you prepare the cheesecake batter.
- Place all of the cheesecake ingredients into the work bowl of your food processor and pulse to blend
- Scrape the sides of the bowl to ensure an even mix then blend again to a smooth mixture
- Divide the batter into as many bowls as needed to flavor with flower powder or food coloring.
- Add ¼ teaspoon of flower power into to each 1 cup of cheesecake batter
- Pour the batter into the prepared crust and bake in a water bath in a preheated 350°F oven for 30 minutes for the individuals and 1 hour for the 7" cake
- **If making a 7" cheesecake leave the cake in the oven for an additional 1 hour AFTER turning off the oven, to let it cool slowly with the oven off.
- Remove the cheesecake and cool completely then refrigerate for at least 2 hours to set or overnight before unmolding.
- Loosen the sides and bottom of the cheesecake pan submerging the pan into hot water and running a small spatula around the edges
- Decorate the cheesecakes with white chocolate coconut nests and buttercream flowers is desired
For the white chocolate coconut nests I used about 1 cup of unsweetened natural coconut flakes mixed with approximately 4 Tablespoons of melted vegan white chocolate
Pressed into a plastic wrapped lined mini muffin tin until they set
I also use Little Secrets peanut candies for the “eggs”
I simply wash them quickly under cold water to get off that intense color for a more subtle speckled egg look
I swear, every time I decide to cut sugar out of my diet a new recipe comes out! Yep, that’s quite often. It’s soo drool-worthy.
Welcome to my life…… 😉
Hi, I’m new to water bath baking. Just curious, how did u bake this mini cheesecake using this method as the bottom are removable? Do u wrap it in aluminium foil first then soak the pan into the water? Please advice. Thanks.
Hi! If you watch the video (skip forward to 2:54 minutes) you can see that I placed the mini cheesecake pan on top of a 9″ x 13″ pan, this was a perfect fit so that it did not submerge into the water- but sat perfectly on top of the pan
Thanks so much for sharing with me. So, you do not actually needs lots of water for the water bath baking. I’ll look for a pan size as recommended by you.
I read other bakers method of using water bath, they fully submerged the round cake pan into the water, so I’m wondering how do you do that with removable pan. Thanks for sharing. I’m excited to try my new journey for cheesecake baking. Done with cashew nuts and nuts and it still does not have that authentic taste of a cheesecake.