Cream Cheese Chocolate Peanut no-bake cake
When we were living in a yurt in the Alentejo, in the South-West of Portugal, I only had a gas stove and an immersion blender. For more “kitchen luxury” we had neither money nor solar capacity. What I DID have, though, was a big graving and enthusiasm for cakes. So the first question that arouse: How to make cakes without oven? I only knew baked cakes at that time … But researches (and oh yes thank God we had Wifi there, poor but reachable!) revealed that there existed something in baking which I had never heard of before: no-bake cake. As I deepened my knowledge about this kind of making cakes, I was super super happy and saw light at the end of the tunnel. The next question though followed straight after: How to make a good crust without high speed blender? Everyone on the blogs that I visited, and they were many, was speaking about high speed blenders. But soon I found out, that my beloved immersion blender could do the job perfectly fine too! It just needs a certain technique and patience. This was the time, when my first cream cheese chocolate no-bake cake was born. In the heat of the Alentejen sun. Thank God we had a fridge – which with enough sun even worked!
After moving to the North of Portugal and, strangely enough, going vegan at the same time, the third question arose: How to prepare our beloved cream cheese chocolate no-bake cake without cream cheese?!? I had been eating a lot plant-based before, but with some exceptions, like this no-bake cake, that turned out so perfectly using dairy cream cheese and milk chocolate …
But challenges are there to be taken and mastered. And, uff, I am happy to say today that I did! We just ate half of this Cream Cheese Chocolate Peanut no-bake cake at once, the two of us! So delicious it is!
Not let me reveal the secret: Homemade cream cheese.
To make a nice homemade vegan cream cheese (see this link for the instruction), it takes some time. But it is worth the patience! However, if you cannot take this time, you can use a store-bought product instead.
In terms of chocolate … feel free to use whatever dairy-free chocolate you can find. I used white chocolate and added some cocoa powder to it, to have the marmor effect. But just a black chocolate with a bit more agave syrup (and a pinch more agar-agar powder added to the cream to counter the added liquidity) works perfectly fine too!
Now let’s get started.
The ingredients
For the crust:
- One batch of oat pulp from fresh oat milk making. I love to combine steps in food preparation. I made homemade oat milk today, and it was obvious to use the pulp to make this wonderful no-bake cake. However, if you have no pulp leftover, neither are you planning to make fresh oat milk (eg. to make a nice banana milk or similar), take 1 cup of fine rolled oats instead, blend it with 1 cup of water and pour through a fine sieve.
- 1 cup of fine rolled oats. You can use the coarse ones too, but for me the fine ones work best.
- 1 handful of raisins. It can be any dried fruit. Take what you have at hand – dates, figues or else.
- Juice of 1/2 a lemon. Well, this gives a very nice sourish flavor to the crust. I would not omit this. Orange juice can also work, though.
For the cream:
- Vegan white chocolate. If you cannot find any in your town or village, take any other non-dairy chocolate.
- Agar-agar powder. This makes sure that the cream sets nicely and doesn’t melt away when cutting the cake. Note: Make sure you add a pinch more to the indicated quantity when you use bitter chocolate and more agave syrup!
- Homemade vegan cream cheese from 2 liters of almond or oat milk (soy would give a slight different flavor, but is also fine). It is worth to make your own. However, if this is too much work for you and you find a store-bought vegan cream cheese product, you surely can use that one. For a homemade cream cheese made from plant-milk, click on this link to find the relevant post.
- Cocoa powder, unsweetened. Well, this is only necessary if you are using white chocolate. Omit this when using dark chocolate.
- Peanuts, roasted. To be honest, I only had this (very intuitive) inspiration AFTER taking the ingredient pictures … So bare with me. If you are allergic to peanuts, just use any other nut instead. You might want to roast them before use to bring out the best flavor.
Cream Cheese Chocolate Peanut no-bake cake (vegan, gluten-free)
Equipment
- 1 immersion blender
- 1 cheesecloth or fine fabric strainer only necessary when making the cream cheese yourself
- 1 cake tin 24Ø
Ingredients
For the crust
- 1 handful raisins or other dried fruits that you have at hand
- 110 g fine rolled oats for a gluten-free version, make sure you take certified gluten-free rolled oats!
- 1 batch oat pulp from fresh oat milk making alternatively 1 cup of fine rolled oats, blended in 1 cup of water and poured through a fine sieve
- 1/2 lemon, juice
For the cream
- ca. 1 1/2 cup homemade vegan cream cheese from 2 liters plant-milk (see link to the instruction in the notes below) or a store-bought product (ca 300 g)
- 200 g vegan white chocolate or other vegan chocolate
- 1/2 tsp agar-agar powder plus a pinch more in case you use bitter chocolate
- 2,5 tbsp cocoa powder only when using white chocolate
- 1/2 tbsp agave syrup a bit more when using bitter chocolate
- 4 tbsp roasted peanuts or other roasted nuts
Instructions
Prepare the crust
- In an immersion blender cup, combine the raisins and 3/4 of the rolled oats. Blend, holding the stick slightly inclined, shaking the cup from time to time to ensure that all pieces get chopped. The raisins don't need to be fine, just coarsly chopped.
- In a bowl, combine the raisin-oat mixture, the pulp, the lemon juice and the rest of the (no-blended) rolled oats. It should give some sort of a ball of dough.
- Line the cake tin with clingfilm. Spread the dough evenly with your fingers on the surface, pressing down on all sides. Place the tin in the freezer.
For the cream
- Make your homemade vegan cream cheese, using 2 liters of plant-milk. I used a storebought milk made from rice and almonds. Feel free to choose whatever milk you have at hand (check my notes in the blog post!). If you use a store-bought cream cheese, skip this step.
- Cut the chocolate in chunks. Chop the peanuts.
- Melt the chocolate chunks on bain-marie.
- In the meantime, mix together half of the cream cheese and the agar-agar powder and simmer on low heat for 1 minute.
- Add the agar-agar-mixture to the melted chocolate, whisk well. Add the rest of the cream cheese and whisk well.
- Take the crust out of the freezer. Pour 1/4 of the cream on the crust.
- Add the cocoa powder to the rest of the cream (skip this step if you are using dark chocolate!). Adjust with some agave syrup to your desired sweetness.
- Add the peanut chunks to the cream. Pour the cream on top of the crust. With a fork, make a nice brown-white pattern into the cream.
- Shake the tin a little, keeping it on the table, to even the surface of the cream. Place the cake into the fridge for approximately 2-3 hours.
- Enjoy your cream cheese chocolate peanut no-bake cake!
