Almost Raw Pistachio Vegan Cheesecake

Left to right: raw pistachios, soaked pistachios, decorticated pistachios

This delicious pale green dessert was my second attempt at a vegan cheesecake, and it is really much easier than I imagined. The only difficult part of this recipe is decorticating all the pistachios, but if you have company, the work flies by. I used agar agar or kanten to set the uncooked nut mixture, so this is more of a Bavarian cream than a cheesecake. Agar is a kosher vegetarian gelling agent. The Yiddish word for agar is אַגאַר.
The pistachio flavor is intense (it is almost nothing but nuts) and you just want to fall right into that calming soft green color. A Yiddish version of this recipe and a picture of the finished cake are here.

Chocolate Shortbread Crust

2 cups flour
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
pinch salt
1 cup (8 ounces) coconut oil

Line the bottoms of 3 six-inch springform pans with baking parchment and oil the parchment. preheat the oven to 325.
Combine the flour, sugar, cocoa and salt in the bowl of a processor and pulse to mix. Add the coconut oil and pulse until it forms a dough. Divide the dough into three parts and press into the bottoms of the prepared pans. Chill for 20 minutes or longer, and bake for 25 minutes at 325. This recipe will also make about 50 little shortbread cookies.

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Pistachio Cheesecake (Kernik) or Crème Bavaroise

2 cups pistachios
1 cup almonds
3/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup coconut oil
4 tablespoons agar (kanten) flakes (I used Mitoku)

Soak the almonds and pistachios overnight. Decorticate the nuts. You can remove the almond skins fairly easily by squeezing them and popping the kernels right out. The pistachios might require a little more in the way of persuasion to part with their cortices, but look at how gorgeously green those decorticated kernels are!
Combine the decorticated nuts with honey, salt, coconut oil, and two cups of fresh water in a blender and blend on the highest speed for several minutes to make the puree as satiny as possible. Pour and scrape the nut miuxture into a saucepan and heat with the agar flakes until the dissolve. Pour the filling into two of the prepared crusts, or into individual dessrt glasses and chill.

This recipe appears in Yiddish here.

‏דער רעצעפּט געפֿינט זיך אױף ייִדיש דאָ ‏


Yes, I know you still have one unfilled crust. Watch this space!