You’ve all seen pumpkin pie before, but this is something different. It has all the flavours, with the added twist of being a vegan cheesecake. This utterly delicious Vegan Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake with Toffee Sauce is no exception! That toffee sauce just finishes it off beautifully into the most indulgent dessert.
Pumpkins and squashes are so versatile and also healthy. Not only are they beautiful to look at, coming in all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes and sizes, but they're also super delicious and lend themselves to both sweet and savoury cooking.
This vegan pumpkin cheesecake is SERIOUSLY good. We fought. With Spoons. It's THAT good.
🎃Ingredients
The main ingredient is pumpkin! We've got loads of savoury pumpkin and squash dishes on our blog, so we wanted to make sure we had some fabulous sweet ones, perfect for Halloween and Thanksgiving. This vegan pumpkin cheesecake recipe uses pumpkin puree, which is accessible all year round, but you could make your own from fresh pumpkin.
Some of the other key ingredients (but not all of them) are:
Cashews - one of the main base ingredients of this vegan pumpkin cheesecake, full of protein and makes it nice and creamy.
Silken tofu - a brilliant ingredient for cheesecake. Makes it silky and smooth, and also has lots of protein. There are so many incredible silken tofu recipes - check these out!
Pumpkin spices - essential to this dessert! It includes ground ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice. Of course, you could just find a pumpkin pie spice mix and use 4 tablespoon of that instead of the other spices. Feel free to change up the spices depending on what you like or what you have available.
Flaxseed / linseed - this is a great binder and egg replacement, and is used in the base of this vegan pumpkin pie cheesecake to help it stick together nicely. It's full of healthy Omega-3s. It needs to be milled (blended), which you can do yourself, or buy it ready done. We have a whole post on the best vegan egg replacements too!
Coconut milk - another key ingredient to the cheesecake filling. It's also key to the toffee sauce! It doesn't make the cheesecake taste of coconut though so don't worry. I tend to use Biona's Organic Coconut Milk as it's just pure coconut (you'd be surprised how many ingredients are in other brands).
🥞Toffee Sauce
Can we take a minute to talk about the toffee sauce drizzle to this vegan pumpkin cheesecake? OMG- it's so moreish, thick and sweet! This has just two ingredients:
- Brown sugar / coconut palm sugar - I love using coconut palm sugar as it's slightly healthier than regular sugar (it doesn't cause such big blood sugar spikes), but remember that sugar is still sugar and it's a treat!
- Coconut milk
It doesn't require anything else - no margarine, butter - nothing! Depending on how long you cook it, you can make it a bit thicker (cooking for longer) or runnier (cooking for less time). The toffee sauce for this vegan pumpkin cheesecake can be used as a drizzle for other desserts too like our Gingerbread Chocolate Brownies! If you add chocolate and salt to it, then you get our 4 Ingredient Vegan Chocolate Salted Caramel Sauce, which I HIGHLY recommend.
👩🏽🍳How To
This vegan pumpkin pie cheesecake is actually pretty simple. In summary, this is what you do:
👩🏽🍳 Make the base by blending up the nuts, sugar, milled linseed, salt and oats. Then add the melted coconut oil.
👩🏽🍳 Press the base into the bottom of your ramekins, place on a baking sheet and bake for just 7 minutes (so it goes a little crispy).
👩🏽🍳 Make the vegan pumpkin cheesecake filling by blending the pumpkin puree, cashews, silken tofu, pumpkin spices, sugar, cornstarch and coconut milk. I found that once the cheesecake mixture is blended up it goes quite a dark brown colour. However, once baked, it turns a lovely orange-golden colour. So don’t worry if your mixture is looking a little on the dull side, it will all be beautiful when it comes out of the oven!
👩🏽🍳 Add the cheesecake mixture to the top of the bases and then bake for a further 25-30 minutes. If you're making one large cheesecake, you may need to give them more time in the oven.
👩🏽🍳 Make the toffee sauce to drizzle over your delicious vegan pumpkin cheesecake. It's as simple as combining the sugar and coconut milk. Heat it, and stir or whisk continuously, to bring it to the boil. Turn it down, then keep stirring / whisking until it thickens up. This can take 10-15 minutes, so don't worry if it's taking a while (I freak out that it won't thicken but it always does!).
❓FAQs
These are questions I'm most commonly asked about my vegan pumpkin pie cheesecake.
Yes! Just store in an airtight container and have it as a treat another time.
If you haven't gobbled it all, then yes! It stores really well in the freezer, as does our 4 Ingredient Vegan Chocolate Salted Caramel Sauce.
Yes, as long as you use gluten free oats, or use quinoa flakes or buckwheat flakes for the base.
This recipe does use silken tofu which is made from soy. However (but I haven't tested it), you could double the coconut cream instead of using tofu. We have a great soy free cheesecake you'll love though.
Yes, just use a large springform tin. You will need to cook it for longer than the mini ones. Possible 35 minutes - just make sure it's fully cooked before you take it out to cool.
🍽️Other recipes
Vegan Lemon and Blueberry Baked Cheesecake (gluten free)
Vegan Lemon and Strawberry Cheesecake (gluten and soy free)
The Best Vegan Pumpkin Pancakes with Facon and Maple Syrup (Gluten Free!)
Cheesy Vegan Savoury Pumpkin Scones
4 Ingredient Vegan Chocolate Salted Caramel Sauce
If you loved this indulgent vegan pumpkin cheesecake, please comment below and share the yummy love with your friends!
Vanessa x
📖 Recipe
Vegan Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake
Ingredients Note:
For accuracy, I measure all ingredients in metric as standard, then convert and test the recipe for American cup measurements etc.
(Heads up Aussie and UK readers- your measurements in cups are sometimes different, so please use metric or check you have the correct cup and spoon type!!)
Ingredients
For the Crust
- 60 g (¾ cups) oats (use gluten free if desired)
- 65 g (½ cups) mixed nuts (mix of almonds, walnuts, pecans and brazil nuts)
- 25 g (2½ tablespoon) coconut palm sugar / caster sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 20 g (2 tablespoon) milled linseed/flaxseed
- 40 g (3 tablespoon) coconut oil (melted)
For the Filling
- 180 g (1 ½ cups) cashews (soaked in hot water for an hour, then drained)
- 100 g (½ cups) coconut milk (full fat from a tin)
- 4 tablespoon arrowroot starch / cornstarch / tapioca starch
- 300 g (1¼ cups ) silken tofu (1 standard pack)
- 90 g (½ cups) coconut palm sugar
- 200 g (¾ cups) pumpkin puree (around half a tin/can)
- 2 tablespoon melted coconut oil
- 2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 4 teaspoon ground ginger
- 2 teaspoon allspice
For the Toffee Sauce Drizzle
- 100 g (¾ cups) coconut palm sugar / brown sugar
- 400 ml (1¾ cups) full fat coconut milk (1 tin/can)
Instructions
For the Crust
- Pre-heat the oven to 180°C / 350°F / Gas Mark 4.
- Make the crust by blending together all dry ingredients. You want a bread crumb consistency.
- Once blended, add the melted coconut oil.
- Press the crust into pre-greased small ramekins or one larger springform tin. Try to use ones with a removable base.
- Bake the crust in the oven for 7 minutes. Once done, leave out to cool.
For the Cheesecake Filling
- Keep oven at 180°C / 350°F / Gas Mark 4.
- To make the filling, blend all filling ingredients until smooth.
- Pour filling mix over the crusts and smooth out.
- Bake the cheesecakes in the oven for around 25-30 minutes, until the tops are firm. You may need to adjust the timing depending on how small the cheesecake ramekins are (the smaller the size, the less time the cheesecakes will need to cook). One larger will may need 35 minutes.
- To serve, drizzle with ample toffee sauce!
To Make the Toffee Drizzle
- Place the sugar and coconut milk in a heavy-based saucepan. Stirring or whisking continuously, bring the sauce to the boil on a medium heat. Once boiled, turn down the heat.
- Let the sugar and coconut milk thicken on this low heat, stirring or whisking as much as possible. This may take around 10-15 minutes. It will be ready when it is a caramel consistency. If you want it to be thicker, boil for longer to let more liquid evaporate.
- Once it is cooled, it can be stored in an airtight container or jar in the fridge (if it doesn’t get eaten immediately!). If reheating, you can add a little vegan milk to help soften it.
Yogesh says
Yum ??
Jacqueline Meldrum says
I've never really fancied trying pumpkin pie but I think you have converted me.
Vanessa Sturman says
Very pleased to hear this. This is the BEST way to enjoy pumpkin pie flavours!
Lucy says
I've never had a pumpkin pie cheesecake before! This is the perfect dessert for fall. The toffee sauce on top is the perfect finishing touch!
Vanessa Sturman says
Oh thank you! We love making pumpkin into the most indulgent desserts
Teodora Grujic says
Looks delicious and it's healthy above all! Thank you for sharing!
Vanessa Sturman says
You're welcome! We're always so excited to share our yums 😜
Jersey Girl Cooks says
I can't believ this cheesecake is vegan! It's so creamy and delicious!
Vanessa Sturman says
Ha ha, we aim to shock and please at the same time 😜
Nathan says
Pumpkin pie cheesecake already had me interested, and then I saw that toffee drizzle. Can't wait to make this for myself!
Vanessa Sturman says
Oh this is so great to hear! We're also obsessed with that drizzle and can't get enough of it