Ginger and Lemon Cheesecake

Difficulty: Easy

Serves 10

While most people spent their Friday night celebrating the end of the work week, I stayed home in my pyjamas that I had been in all day. At around 8.30pm I decided to do something productive and popped down to the supermarket to purchase ingredients. Supermarkets are kind of creepy later in the evening, especially on “non-school nights” and the clientele is the opposite of what you’ll find during the day. I spotted one guy holding two cheap casks of wine while his friend purchased a few packets of microwave popcorn, which proved to me that my night could be worse. Anyway, I decided to make a Ginger and Lemon Cheesecake using gingernut biscuits for the base, some fresh lemon juice and crystallised ginger to give it that extra zing.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 packets of Leda gingernut biscuits
• 1/2 cup Nuttelex (or any vegan margarine), melted
• 1 carton Soyatoo Topping Cream
• 1 tub Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
• 2 tablespoons icing sugar
• Juice of half a lemon
• 4 drops of yellow food colouring
• 1/2 cup crystallised ginger, finely chopped
• Lemon rind

Method

1. Using a food processor, blend the biscuits until no large chunks remain.
2. Add the melted margarine and mix well.
3. Evenly press the base mixture into a greased springform pan.
4. In a large bowl, combine the Tofutti and Soyatoo. Mix well.
5. Add the icing sugar, lemon juice and food colouring and combine.
6. Fold through the ginger.
7. Pour the topping in the tin and smooth out the top, sprinkle with lemon rind.
8. Leave to set in the fridge for at least 2 hours (overnight for best results).