We've been impatiently waiting for summer to start and to get us in the mood we decided to do some strawberry themed recipes- we now have an abundance of locally grown beautifully ripe and juicy strawberries available to us so we thought a couple of sweet recipes that all the family will enjoy making over the half term would be very fitting for the Jubilee bank holiday- starting with a beautiful cheesecake!
We first discovered the lovely combination of strawberry and hibiscus when we did our raw vegan chef training in Barcelona but this is the first time I've experimented with it again since then.
Hibiscus tea gives it a lovely added astringent tartness to balance out the sweetness of the strawberries and hazelnuts. It’s also a great way to boost the immune system and is packed with vitamins. So a win win really! We love the addition of both limes and oranges as well- it really lifts the other flavours, but if you prefer to leave out one of the citrus fruits they aren't both essential.
This cheesecake recipe has a lot of ingredients listed- please don't be daunted or put off! It could easily be simplified- there's no need to use all three different nuts for the base- just one variety is fine, and the buckwheat groats aren't essential- We are just buckwheat and nut fiends and love the added textures so that's why we included so many elements! Similarly with the strawberry filling- we know coconut meat is hard to get hold of and is expensive so you can easily leave that out, and the beetroot is mainly there for the gorgeous colour so again, not entirely essential.
We hope to add some strawberry desserts including a cheesecake very soon to the Dovebrook range and have plenty more beautiful seasonal summer dishes to send your way!
Serves 8-10
Layered Strawberry, Hibiscus, Hazelnut Pecan Cheesecake recipe:
Ingredients:
Crust layer:
50g walnuts
50g hazelnuts
50g Pecans
30g buckwheat groats
125g Medjool dates
1 tsp Ground ginger
pinch of sea salt
15 ml coconut oil
Hazelnut Pecan layer
80g of Hazelnut and Cacao butter (or use hazelnut butter and then add 30g of cacao powder)
50g cacao butter, melted
30g coconut sugar
45g whole hazelnuts
45g whole pecans
1 tsp Lucuma powder (optional)
50ml nut milk or water
Strawberry & Hibiscus Layer:
260g soaked cashews
90 coconut meat (we used Mighty Bee)
60 ml almond milk
2 tbsp cacao butter
1tsp vanilla powder
1 raw medium sized beetroot, grated
150g strawberries
80ml hibiscus tea
80ml maple syrup
Juice of 2 limes
zest & juice of half an orange
Method:
Line a 20 cm spring for cake tin with parchment. Grind the nuts in a food processor, but don’t grind it down too fine- you still want a bit of crunchy texture. Add the remaining ingredients and pulse a few times until fully incorporated. Press mixture down into the cake tin and create an even base layer. Place in the freezer, covered.
Make the nut layer by mixing all the ingredients together apart from the nuts which should be stirred in whole after everything else is blended. Pour this layer onto the base. Put back in the freezer.
To make the strawberry layer, blend the soaked cashews until smooth, followed by the rest of the ingredients. Put back in freezer for a couple of hours. Finally, you can top the cake with edible dried flowers, dried strawberry slices, freeze dried strawberry powder, and some mint leaves for added freshness. Leave it to thaw in the fridge for a couple of hours before serving.
Happy Jubilee bank holiday everyone!
El and Sham xx
