Cherry Chocolate Cake

I am in love with the talent behind Fragrant Vanilla Cake. When I learned how to make vegan cashew cheesecakes I inevitably stumbled upon her blog. If you’re a fan of these cakes I say go to her blog pick whatever ingredient you have on hand and just start there! You will not be disappointed. 

I try to keep the recipes a little simpler on here, more for the average cook. However I was making this cake for my 90 year old grandparents (one of whom recently went thru chemo and has diabetes) my parents (my mom taught me everything I know) my sister (who can bake anything and is totally soyfree) my nieces and nephew (all past 21 now ahhh! One is Paleo they all are very clean eaters, my sister raised them well) and one of their boyfriends who is an ironman triathlete (also paleo, and also a super clean eater). I wanted everyone to have an awesome dessert, I also wanted them to enjoy it guilt free. So I went to Fragrant, and picked out the cake that was in season and looked simply decedent.

I basically followed the recipe with a few exceptions:

Here in upstate NY I couldn’t find raw cashews to save my life! I ended up buying raw organic pine nuts (holy crap expensive!) and using those instead. Honestly after the soaking no one could tell but me. I knew. It’s still making me a little crazy. But it was rich and delish.

We had fresh picked raspberries from a family friend and beautiful cherries, but no strawberries so I just did half and half. 

I used almonds instead of walnuts for the crust.

There are no springform pans here (it took me 3 people to find a food processor) so I bought two disposable pan tins. I cut the bottom out of one and put the ring just inside of the bottom one. After it set in the freezer just before I served it I cut the pans down the side and just pulled them off. Sometimes you have to be creative to get the job done! Apparently being stubborn is a family trait. 

Here’s the link to her site for this specific cake http://fragrantvanillacake.blogspot.com/2013/06/raw-chocolate-ruby-cheesecake.html

The basics to making complicated things like this:

1.Make all the chocolate things in a row so you don’t have to wash the food processor out more than you need to.

2. Start with the nuts and let them get nice and pureed before you start adding the other things to make it as nice and creamy as possible.

3. Soak those nuts overnight. It really makes a difference in the consistency.

Good luck!