I decided that my birthday this year was the perfect excuse to make a cheesecake with my favourite flavours.
I wanted it to be something I hadn’t made before and one that was more of a celebration cake and maybe just a little bit fancier than other cheesecakes I’d made. A week earlier Taline Gabrielian (of Hippie Lane fame) had posted a gorgeous swirly chocolatey caramelly looking cake to celebrate her birthday; so I jumped on to the Hippie Lane app as there is a beautiful Celebration Cakes section. I’m not a mocha flavour person but something about the cake made me click on the recipe. Oh my goodness, buckinis in one of the layers? That just made me think of Hokey Pokey ice cream and I knew that was my birthday cake this year!
My favourite ice cream as a child was Hokey Pokey.
You could only get this in tubs at the ice cream parlour where they would scoop it into little bowls or onto cones. It is vanilla ice cream with deliciously golden chunks of honeycomb through it. Apparently Hokey Pokey is the New Zealand term for honeycomb toffee. Looking it up so I could explain the flavour correctly, I never realised this was a New Zealand ice cream. Wikipedia tells me it is the second most popular flavour in New Zealand after plain vanilla.
The first time I made this cheesecake I had the intention of it being a Hokey Pokey cake but with the first bite I realised disappointingly it wasn’t,
then I realised it was even better as it turned out to be an unintentional Golden Gaytime cake!
If you’ve never tried a Golden Gaytime it’s a toffee and vanilla ice cream on a stick, dipped in chocolate then coated in honeycomb biscuits and was my choice of ice cream if scoops of Hokey Pokey weren’t available.
After a visit to friends as a child, we always hoped Dad would drive us by Church Point to get home. Any time we went that way we always stopped to have an ice cream by the water. We used to say can we go the pretty way home but I don’t think we fooled Dad or Mum that what we really meant was can we go the ice cream way home! They didn’t have scoops of ice cream there but they did have a huge big chest freezer full of ice creams. This was back when you could buy a Cornetto or Golden Gaytime for 70c – and they were the most expensive ones! Golden Gaytime ice creams to me were the next best thing to scoops of honeycomb goodness. So when this cheesecake turned out to be just like a Golden Gaytime, well, it was as though all of my birthdays had come at once!
So this is an ode to my childhood, all those years ago. I hope this cake brings the child out in you.
Ingredients
Base:
1 cup pecans
½ cup activated buckwheat (buckinis)
1 tbsp cacao powder
1-2 Medjool dates soaked
Pinch of salt
Toffee Pieces:
¾ cup activated buckwheat (buckinis)
¼ cup organic coconut syrup
Dark sugar free chocolate melted
(Or see notes below)
Filling:
1 ¾ cups cashews – soaked overnight
½ cup coconut milk with the thick topping (see notes)
1/3 cup coconut oil
3 tbsp maple syrup
1 heaped tbsp mesquite powder
Pinch vanilla salt (see notes)
Method
Base:
1. Blend base ingredients together except the dates. The buckinis will keep a little crunch
2. Add the dates, you may need more or less depending on how juicy they are. I soak them for 10 minutes in hot water to make them softer and therefore you use less
3. Press into individual moulds or into a spring form tin if making a whole cake
4. Freeze while making the filling
Toffee Pieces:
Place chocolate into a double boiler to melt while making the toffee pieces or you may prefer to make raw chocolate instead
Meanwhile place a baking sheet lined with parchment in the freezer
Add the coconut syrup to a hot frypan, allow to bubble which will thicken and reduce it slightly
Then add the buckinis to the coconut syrup and continue to stir for another minute or two.
Once the buckinis are ready, pour over the baking sheet and place back in the freezer to cool and set slightly – they will remain sticky though
Drizzle the melted chocolate over the buckinis and again leave to set in the freezer
Once set, break into pieces
This will last quite a while in a sealed jar – it’s a great standby to have on hand!
NOTE: If you don't want to do the caramelising of the buckinis, a great alternative is to buy the Loving Earth Caramalised Buckinis, lay them out on a lined tray and drizzle with melted chocolate. Leave to set in the freezer as above.
Filling:
Drain and rinse your cashews
Add all ingredients to the blender and mix until smooth
Mix some of the broken up toffee pieces with a spoon through the cheesecake mix
Pour over the base and set in the freezer for 4 hours for the individual sizes, longer for the whole cake
Once set, it’s up to you. I drizzled over some more melted chocolate then sprinkled on more toffee pieces. If you are making individual cakes you can leave some with chocolate only, and some with the toffee
Notes:
I always keep a can of coconut milk in the fridge. It’s a great way to separate the thick coconut from the water. For this recipe I used to top thick layer of the cooled can of coconut milk. I then use the remaining milky water in a smoothie so nothing is wasted
Vanilla salt is a recent addition to my pantry, and I just love it! I mix together vanilla powder and Celtic salt and always have a jar prepared. It’s a great way to add salt to your desserts without it being over powering. The vanilla seems to soften the salt and it adds a delicious kick to both savoury and sweet dishes.
Enjoy!
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