Catchy title eh?
Ok, let’s get one thing straight, right now. I love sweets. Like I REALLY love them. Making desserts is pretty much my favorite thing to do. It’s hard coming up with paleo desserts. My desserts often fail. I still eat them. I waste nothing. Making desserts for people just makes me so happy. I stare at them to watch their reaction to see if they like it. If I don’t get the response I want, I hate them. And our friendship ends. Thankfully I still have a few friends left.
But this dessert is something unreal. LIKESERIOUSLYOMGUNREAL. Laura stared at me with “Holy Balls” eyes when she tried this dessert. She said it definitely was a 10 and couldn’t believe how much it tasted like cheesecake. I.Was.Pumped. I want to make a kitty pool out of this dessert and live in it. Then make out with it. I honestly may make it every week. Sh*t could get ugly. Not literally. This will make your bum much happier than real cheesecake.
Anywho. Guess what I did the other day!? Went to a sporting event!!! NBD. Yeah, you want to see me out of my comfort zone? Place me at a baseball with thousands of screaming drunk people. I’m awkward there. If you follow me on instagram @paleomg, you could probably tell I was out of my element since 3 or the 5 pictures included alcohol. I drank ALMOST a full glass of a Strongbow, 3 sips…wait wait…4 sips of a Blue Moon, and I ate a blackberry out of a purple margarita, I think it had some alcohol in it. I just got wild!! But here is the kicker, I ACTUALLY had fun. I was with Laura so that’s a given that I would at least smile throughout the game, but I truly enjoyed the full 4 minutes of the game that I watched.
I can’t talk anymore. I need to eat my cheesecake. I’m not even joking.
No Bake Caramel Cheesecake (minus cheese)
Ingredients
For the crust
- 1 cup almond butter
- 1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
- 2/3 cup walnuts
- 1 heaping tablespoon coconut butter or homemade coconut butter
- 1 heaping tablespoon raw honey
- pinch of salt
For the filling
- 1.5 cups roasted, unsalted cashews
- 1/2 cup coconut oil
- 1/2 cup raw honey
- 2–3 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2–4 tablespoon canned coconut milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the caramel
- 12–14 medjool dates, pitted and soaked in water for an hour
- 5–6 tablespoons canned coconut milk
- 3 tablespoons water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
- salt to top it all off with
Instructions
- Place dates in a bowl of water to soak.
- Let’s first make the crust!! Add walnuts to your food processor and blend until you get a meal, almost a walnut butter. Then add the rest of your crust ingredients and blend until well combined.
- Add crust mixture to an 8×8 glass baking dish lined with saran wrap, press down until evenly distributed. I sound so professional right now.
- Wipe out the inside of your food processor, no need to scrub, then add your cashews and blend until you begin to get a clumpy mess.
- Then add your coconut oil, lemon juice, vanilla extract and honey and puree until well combined.
- And lastly, add your coconut milk, 1 tablespoon at a time to break down the cashews completely. I used about 3 tablespoons for mine until the cashews became this soupy paste.
- Pour your filling onto the crust and use a knife or spoon to spread mixture throughout the entire pan, covering the crust, then place in the freezer for about 1-2 hours or until completely hard.
- Once your dates have soaked for about an hour, remove them from the water, and add them to a food processor and pulse until dates have broken down (less than a minute).
- Then add your coconut milk tablespoon by tablespoon to the dates while the food processor is still running. Then add your water as well.
- And add your vanilla extract and pinch of salt.
- Process until you get a caramel. Just let it run for a while. Pick your nose. Look at a trash magazine and BOOM. Caramel. May take 3-5 minutes, tops.
- Spread caramel over hardened cheesecake filling.
- Top with some course salt.
- Place it freezer for about 30 minutes until everything has set.
- Cut bars into the sizes you want. The saran wrap will help you pull them out without destroying their gorgeous looks. Just pull on the side of the saran wrap and it will pop right out.
- Eat. Eat and remember how wonderful it is to be paleo.
- PALEO IS AWESOME!
Notes
I am not saying how many it served. Sergio had once piece. Laura and I had the rest….oops. Whatever. Life is good.
____________
More Bar Ideas For Ya:
Chocolate “Peanut Butter” Cookie Bars
No-Bake Chocolate Chip Cream Bars
________________
Click Here To Get All My PaleOMG Recipes Into Your Meal Planner With Real Plans!
I may be compensated through my affiliate links in this post, but all opinions are my own. This compensation helps with expenses to keep this blog up and running!
This seriously can’t be good for you cos it tastes mind blowingly fantastic!!! I decided i would give it a try (as I have with many other raw/healthy foods and been very disappointed). So bit over an hour later of fluffing around in the kitchen (mind you I don’t have a food processor so took a lot longer than it should) I couldn’t wait for it to set so my partner and I tried some. He is VERY FUSSY when it comes to “real” food and he was seriously impressed. I think I am going to have to buy a food processor. Thank you for your creativity and a bloody great recipe!!!
Hey, a suggestion – for the 3 T water required for the ‘caramel’… use the leftover water from the water the dates soaked in! I didn’t take the time to read all the comments, so apologies if someone already suggested this!
Any water will work!
It came out delicious! Thank you!
The taste of coconut was very overpowering tho. Is there any way to lessen it without ruining the “cheesecake”?
I made these last night and brought them to work. All of the ladies at the office LOVED them. They all asked me for the recipe.
I did make a couple of modifications. I didn’t use honey for the crust because the almond butter I used was sweet. For the filling I used two cups of cashews to make it a bit taller and added 8 tbsp. lemon juice and 8 tbsp. of coconut milk.
To me it tastes like a coconut breakfast bar.
Thank you for the recipe!
Delicious!! I was surprised by just how “cheesecakey” it really tasted. Used my Vitamix since I don’t have a food processor and the only part that gave me trouble was the crust since the blade couldn’t quite get to everything. I overdid the lemon a tiny bit, but it’s still fantastic. Thanks Juli!