It’s officially baking season! Be it Thanksgiving or any of the December holidays, pumpkin is still the star of the show. But now you can have your cake and eat it too with my Protein Packed vegan Marbled Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe as it is also sugar free, gluten free and packed with 25 grams of protein per slice so it’s also, guilt free!
Crust
- 2 boxes of vegan cookies or graham crackers of choice (I used chocolate cereal by Catalina Crunch as it is high in protein, vegan and gluten free and is monk fruit sweetened)
- 6 tablespoons vegan butter of choice, room temperature
Filling
- 2 1/2 cups of vegan cream cheese, room temperature (about 3 8 oz tubs)
- 2 cups vegan greek yogurt, plain or vanilla
- 1/2 cup protein powder (plain or vanilla, I used stevia sweetened Vanilla plant based protein powder by True Nutrition)
- 2/3 cup monk fruit sweetener (I used Lakanto monk fruit maple syrup)
- 2 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 can pumpkin puree
- 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin spice
To make the crust:
Add cookies/cereal into a food processor and pulse until crumbly, breaking up all chunks.
Add crumbs to a mixing bowl with the room temperature butter and hand mix until fully incorporated.
Add into a greases 9-inch springform pan and press down firmly into the base to make a flat and compact crust. Place in the fridge to harden up before adding filling.
To0 make the filling:
Preheat your oven to 350 F and fill a baking sheet around two thirds up with water*. Place this pan on the oven lower rack.
Beat all ingredients except pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice in a food processor or with beaters or a blender just until smooth.
Take 2 cups of the mixture and place in another mixing bowl and mix in the pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice.
Alternate 2 dolops at a time of the regular and pumpkin filling into the springform on top of the cooled crust in the springform pan, swirling with a knife to create the marble design and doing your best not to mix it too much so they don’t fully blend. Do this until all the fillings have been added into the pan. Be sure to tap the pan several times by picking it up slightly (like half an inch) and dropping it on the counter to remove bubbles and also to make sure the filling is evened out.
Then place cheesecake on the center rack of the oven (above the rack with the water pan). Bake 1 hour, then turn off the heat without ever opening the oven. Let sit inside the oven an additional 15 minutes.
Remove and let cool on the counter before placing the still-under baked cheesecake into the fridge for at least six hours or overnight, during which time it will firm up nicely.
*The gradual cooling steps (no sudden temperature changes) and water pan step (adding moisture to the oven) are tricks to help the finished cheesecake not crack.
