Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake Recipe

 Chocolate caramel cheesecakes are an all-time favourite cheesecake flavour. Loved because they are rich, delicious, and just plain beautiful! They are such a perfect dessert for special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s day, Christmas…the list goes on and on!

Making your own cheesecakes at home can be pretty straightforward, with thousands of unique cheesecake recipes online there's plenty to choose from - Here at The Skinny Food Co, we've decided to showcase our latest Chocaholic Chocolate Syrups collection in a variety of exciting and new recipes, starting with a classic vegan vanilla cheesecake paired with our chocolate caramel sauce - YUM!

How To Make a Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake

Ingredients: 

For the base:

• Vegan Wholemeal Digestives - We use Doves Farm (1 pack crushed into crumbs)
• Vegan Butter (or coconut oil)  (6 tablespoons)
• 30g Sugar 

For the filling: 

• Vegan Cream Cheese - We use Violife (900g - which works out at roughly 4.5 packets)
• 400ml Coconut Cream
• 4 Tsp Vanilla Flavour Drops 
• 1 Tsp Lemon juice

For The Coating: 

• Chocolate Caramel Syrup 
• Vegan Chocolate Shavings - We used Hotel Chocolates

Method 

Step 1: Preheat Your Oven to 180c or Gas Mark 4 

Step 2: Grease your nonstick 9-inch- spring form pan with our 1Kcal oil or any other oil spray.

Step 3: Grab your mixing bowl and begin adding the broken digestives and melted coconut oil - stirring well until the mixture is combined.

Step 4: Begin packing your biscuit base until the spring form pan, pressing down firmly and evenly. Make sure there is an even layer of your digestive biscuit base to avoid a collapsing cake. 

Step 5: Whisk your vegan cream cheese to loosen it.

Step 6: Once your mixture is smooth begin adding the rest of your filling ingredients. Continuing to whisk. You can choose to use a hand whisk or an electric whisk depending on preference. 

Step 7:  Take your cheesecake filling and begin pouring over your cheesecake base, ensuring the entire cheesecake is smooth and even sided

Step 8: Bake your cheesecake batter for 45 minutes. However it is important that you do not let any air get to the cheesecake during the cooking process, so do not open the oven doors for the duration of the baking. 

Step 9: Once baked leave to cool in the oven for an additional 10 minutes prior to removing.

Step 10: Leave cool for an additional 15 minutes on the countertop before placing in the fridge. Your cheesecake will firm over time, however, is not ready to be cut for a few hours. We recommend chilling your vegan cheesecake for a minimum of 6 hours. 

Step 11: Decoration - Congratulations, by this time the entire cheesecake should be firm and set. Now you can remove it from the fridge, gently lifting the springform tin from its place revealing the perfect cheesecake.  Taking your Chocaholic Chocolate Caramel Syrup, begin adding a layer of caramel sauce to your cheesecake 

Step 12: Grate over some vegan chocolate shavings and set for an additional 30 minutes in the fridge. 

Vegan Cheesecake

Vegan alternative food is on the rise, and it was only time that the cheesecake industry had its own dash of alternative products to create the best vegan cheesecake recipe. There are actually a few alternative cheesecake ingredients you can use to make your cheesecake vegan-friendly.

In our recipe, we used Vegan Cream cheese for the filling by replacing traditional full-fat cream cheese. 

We also chose to replace the biscuit crumbs with our own crunchy biscuit base made from wholemeal vegan digestive. However, you can choose to use your own favourite biscuits, or even make your own biscuit mixture.

Finally, we chose to replace some of the unnecessary granulated sugars in this caramel chocolate cheesecake recipe, this is because both our Vanilla Flavour Drops & Caramel Chocolate Syrup are sugar-free and offer a healthier alternative when used in baked goods & desserts. 

If you're looking to create a vegan alternative there are handful of recipes for cheesecake that avoid using Vegan cream cheese, you could try: 

• Raw Cashew Nuts
• Tofu 

Chocolate Cheesecake

Whilst we absolutely love our chocolate & caramel recipes, there are many other chocolate syrup flavours we believe would work exceptionally well with our cheesecake recipe & with all vegan desserts.

Excitingly our Chocaholic Syrups Collection includes 10 new flavours that can be paired with your favourite bakes

• Chocaholic Drops Syrup 
• Chocolate Mint Syrup 
• Chocolate Caramel Syrup 
• Chocolate Peanut Syrup
• Chocolate Coconut Syrup
• Chocolate Hazelnut Syrup
• Chocolate Malt Syrup
• Chocaholic Orange Syrup
• Chocolate Honeycomb Syrup
• Chocolate Turkish Delight Syrup

How to Decorate Your Cheesecake

While we chose to decorate ours with Chocolate Caramel Syrup & Vegan Chocolate Shavings there are so many options you can choose to decorate your cheesecakes with that still keep them vegan, frozen berries are a particularly popular one, however, we also love Oreo pieces or even biscoff spread!

 For the Oreo cheesecake, take two Oreos and crush them together using a rolling pin or the backside of a large knife. Then place half of the Oreo crumbs onto the bottom of the pan. Top with the cheesecake mixture. Add the remaining Oreo pieces on top of the cheesecake mixture.

Baked vs No Bake Cheesecake

Obviously, the key difference between baked and no-bake cheesecake is the cooking process, but what does this mean for the overall taste of the cheesecake, and the cheesecake texture?

A baked cheesecake has a thicker consistency while a no-bake cheesecake has a firm texture.  A baked cheesecake requires refrigeration while a no-baked cheesecake does not require any refrigeration after being assembled.

How Long Does a Cheesecake Last in The Fridge?

Cheesecake will last up to 2 weeks in the fridge if stored properly. If you’re planning to serve your cheesecake straight away then you should store it in the refrigerator immediately after assembling it. This way, the cheesecake will stay fresh longer.

To prolong the shelf life of your cheesecake, wrap it tightly in cling film before storing it in an airtight container. 

How Long Does a Cheesecake Take To Set?

The time it takes for a cheesecake to set depends on how thick it is. For example, a cheesecake made from a very thick batter will take longer than a cheesecake made from a thinner batter. 

Typically, bake cheesecake sets slower than unbaked cheesecakes due to the prolonged wait time during the refrigeration process. 

To test whether your cheesecake is ready to eat, insert a toothpick into the centre of the cake. If the toothpick comes out clean, then the cheesecake is done setting