I found myself in a bind a bit ago when I was trying to get a birthday cake last minute. Of course, I didn't have TIME to make a cake, and the dilemma with buying cakes as of late has been trying to find ones that are completely plant-based. I came across these delightful little cheesecakes that are made by the Daiya brand and it turns out they are not only vegan but also gluten free, which is nice when you have someone in the crowd with gluten sensitivities. They apparently have a few flavors but I got the New York Style which I guess is "plain." Since the first ingredient is basically coconut, I figured it HAD to taste delicious. (Which by the way, they did). Wasn't until I took them out of the box that I realized how SMALL they were, and I didn't think that stacking them would go very well, so, what to do? Just decorate 3 little ones of course!~
I had a lot of fun actually with making the raspberry sauce and the candied lemons. Aside from letting the lemons simmer for about an hour, it was super simple and barely any hands-on time. I looked up several recipes online and kinda combined ideas and just simplified them.
For the raspberry sauce, I just used a bag of frozen organic raspberries and simmered it in about 1/2 cup of water with some vanilla extract. The original recipe wanted me to use sugar and then add cornstarch, but I figured I would just use like 3/4 cup of confectioners sugar which is basically superfine sugar already mixed with cornstarch. Always nice when you can skip a step; makes life easier! That just took about 10 minutes to get thick and syrupy on low heat and then I put some fresh raspberries on top after.
For the candied lemons I sliced a lemon into fairly thin slices and then let it simmer in some water for an hour. I forget how much sugar I used, but they turned out REALLY sweet, so at any rate I will use less sugar next time.
I just used one little viola flower from my garden and a few sprigs on mint on the other cake for a simple look and drizzled it with some of the leftover lemony syrup from the candied lemons.
