Halloween is the best excuse to have more fun with food creations. Recipes for scary-looking snacks and desserts are popular at this time of year, but they’re often filled with sugar, animal products, and ingredients we can’t even pronounce – which is more like a trick than a treat…
This recipe is packed with healthy ingredients and natural sweeteners, which when combined to create this seasonal dessert, offer a healthy choice amongst the sweets and ‘treats’. The ‘cheese’ in this recipe is actually tofu, which provides plenty of protein and is a good source of iron, calcium and magnesium, to name just a few of its benefits.
Ingredients:
Crust
- 1 ½ cups cooked quinoa (I used black quinoa, but any variety will work)
- ¼ cup oats
- 2 tbsp pure maple syrup
- 2 tbsp honey (swap for brown rice syrup or more pure maple syrup if you’re vegan)
- 1 tbsp ground flax
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
‘Cheese’
- 1 pack tofu
- 5 tbsp pumpkin puree
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp honey (or your choice of vegan alternative)
- 2 handfuls of cashew nuts
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
Method:
Pre-heat your oven to 200 C
Cook your quinoa (for cooking instructions, click here)
Once the quinoa is cooked, add 1 ½ cups of it to a bowl, along with your oats, pure maple syrup, honey (or vegan alternative), flax and coconut oil.
Mix everything together well, and then spoon into an appropriate baking dish. (I used a pie tin with a loose bottom. If you don’t have this, then line a round baking dish with baking paper and use this instead).
Press the mixture into the pan and around the edges to create your pie crust, and bake at 200C for 10 minutes.
While the crust is baking, create the ‘cheese’ part of your cheesecake:
Add your tofu, pumpkin puree, vanilla extract, honey, cashews and cinnamon to a blender and blend until everything is smooth.
After 10 minutes, take the crust out of the oven, and pour on your tofu mixture, spreading evenly across the dish.
Place the pie back in the oven, and turn the oven down to 170C.
Bake for around 20-25 minutes, or until you see the edges beginning to brown and small cracks forming on top of the pie.
Take your pie / cheesecake / whatever you decide this is (!), out of the oven, leave to cool, and then place in the fridge to set for a few hours or overnight.
Share as a treat with family and friends this Halloween!
*This recipe originally appeared on Emma’s websiteand is reproduced with her kind permission.
