Quick and Easy Vegan Cheesecake with Chocolate Dough Chunks (Russischer Zupfkuchen), Classic and Peanut Butter style. The classic style is nut-free.

Base

Follow this recipe or use your own favourite crust for sweet dishes, but remember to make at least ⅓ more for the dough chunks. Also, you will need to add cocoa powder and some extra moisture if the base recipe is plain. This crust is less greasy than most.

• 1 bar dark chocolate
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup neutral oil
• 1 cup plant milk
• 2 tablespoons rum (optional)
• 3 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon or 1 sachet baking powder
• Pinch salt
• Pinch vanilla

Filling

• 1 carton Apro Skyr, unsweetened
• 1 carton soy yogurt, unsweetened
  • -you can use sweetened if you want, or even flavoured variants, but make sure to adjust the sugar to your taste in that case
• 2 packages vanilla pudding powder or 80 gr cornstarch plus vanilla flavouring of your choice
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• ½ cup sugar (taste and add more if you prefer it sweeter)
• ½ cup cacao butter or coconut oil (use deodorised to avoid the coconut taste)
• ½ cup soy milk
• Pinch vanilla

• 

For the peanut butter version:

• 1 carton Apro Skyr, unsweetened
• 1 carton soy yogurt, unsweetened
  • -you can use sweetened if you want, or even flavoured variants, but make sure to adjust the sugar to your taste in that case
• 2 packages vanilla pudding powder or 80 gr cornstarch plus vanilla flavouring of your choice
• 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
• ½ cup sugar (taste and add more if you prefer it sweeter)
• 1 cup peanut butter (natural is best; if you use sweetened make sure to adjust the sugar levels to your taste)
• Pinch vanilla

Caramel (optional)

• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup plant milk
• Pinch salt

Method

For the base, melt the chocolate in a saucepan with the oil, sugar and plant milk on a low heat stirring constantly until you have a shiny ganache. Mix in a bowl with everything else and knead until it holds together without crumbling. You may need to add some extra liquid. 

Once you are done, remove two thirds of the dough, and press it into the bottom of a spring form. I line it with baking paper, but oiling it should work too. The easiest way to do this I’ve found is to keep one third of the dough (again) and spread the rest around the bottom as well as you can, then use something flat like a jar or glass to push the dough down and fill any gaps. Then roll bits of the remaining dough into thin sausages and press them around the sides to make the edges. 

Now make the filling by tossing everything into a blender. Pour onto the base. Then roll bits of the remaining dough into balls and throw them on top. You can sprinkle brown sugar on top liberally before baking to give it a nice golden crust.

If you are making the peanut butter one, you can optionally make the caramel by heating the ingredients in a saucepan until you have a thick caramel. Then splotch it over the surface of the cake and swirl it into the cheese mixture. No need for the sugar crust in this case.

Bake in an oven at 180 degrees for about 45 min – 1 hour.

When you remove the cake, it will be somewhat wobbly, but it will firm up. Let it cool, remove from the spring form and refrigerate overnight. The cake is good for a number of days if kept in the fridge.