For the 9th Annual Volk/Watson Christmas Extravaganza, I kept with the Japanese theme (mostly sushi) and created light-as-air pastries and cakes. That’s not easy when you’re gluten free and dairy free.
I can’t remember the last time I ate cheesecake or tiramisu, two of my favourite desserts. But as much as I don’t love vegan cream cheese, when you bake with it, it works just fine. In fact, the flavour and texture even substitutes really well for Mascarpone cheese, which is mandatory in tiramisu. Then all I had to do was lighten it up with some coconut cultured yogurt and some dairy free pastry cream to get the right consistency in the dish.
Another key ingredient in the Italian dessert is espresso for dipping the ladyfingers. But since I’m also caffeine free (I know, I’m a world of problems…), I used a dark, caramel-y rum to soak the homemade gluten free ladyfingers and then just sprinkled some cocoa powder on top for aesthetics. Nobody knew the difference.
For the recipe, I took inspiration from a lot of online versions, but in the end just blended ingredients together to taste and consistency. Good luck!
Oh! I almost forgot! I also made a vegan version. In place of the pastry cream, I whisked in coconut whipped cream (coconut cream whipped to whipped cream consistency). It wasn’t as rich and thick and custard-y as the non-vegan, dairy free version, but it was very mousse-like and fluffy.
Then there were the shortcakes. I used an awful recipe from online for a strawberry mousse shortcake and chestnut mousse shortcake. They might have been fine with cake flour, but they sure didn’t like my gluten free flour substitution. So I ended making a replacement cake from Alice Medrich’s Flavor Flours: A New Way to Bake with Teff, Buckwheat, Sorghum, Other Whole & Ancient Grains, Nuts & Non-Wheat Flours
Unfortunately, I didn’t use any of her mousses or frostings, sticking instead with a simple combination of icing sugar and vegan margarine. It was foolish of me because I know you need the Earth Balance shortening – not the “buttery spread” – or your icing will turn into gloop. Which it did. I ended up adding in some agar agar boiled with water to make it set quickly rather than throwing out 8 cups of icing and starting from scratch. It wasn’t pretty, but it tasted great. The strawberry mousse thickened with agar agar was a much better success. All you do is boil some kind of liquid (almond milk or coconut cream with sugar, or even simple syrup) with a teaspoon of agar agar powder and it will set in a few hours, just like jello. It gives a perfect mousse-like consistency without the pork products involved in gelatin.
I made the chestnut mousse between the 2 to 4 layers of cake with coconut milk and blended chestnuts, which I sieved to make it smooth. Then I candied some chestnuts to garnish (just sugar and broken up chestnut pieces cooked to syrup temperature on a candy thermometre).
I was going to make a separate icing for it, but I had so much strawberry frosting left after trying to salvage it. So I just used that.
This banana pudding cake was just bananas cooked in a skillet with earth balance and turbinado sugar (brown sugar, but less refined) covered with pastry cream and topped with meringue. I also did a vegan version (the cream had a lot of egg yolks and the meringues were all egg whites) using coconut cream whipped cream again and no meringue topping. I didn’t broil the vegan version, because I don’t think coconut cream broils well…hmm…an experiment for another day.
And last but not least, the cheesecakes! I made three of these, which meant I separated 18 eggs!!! The recipe came from this YouTube video and it worked perfectly with vegan cream cheese spread from Daiya. It would probably work with others, but that’s what I used. (Daiya is not sponsoring this post).
You have to weigh your ingredients, but that makes the gluten free flour replacement work better – you’re more likely to have problems with a cup-to-cup replacement.
The cheesecakes are best served simply, with berries rather than a sweetened sauce. I tried it with a blueberry coulis, but it overpowered the beauty of the lemon-kissed tang. My brother says it wasn’t as light as a real Uncle Tetsu cheesecake, like people wait forever in line for in Toronto, but he didn’t turn down seconds. And that was probably the fault of the gluten free flour substitution, not the recipe.
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