Vegan Noms: Pumpkin Cheesecake Bites

I used to share food and recipes all the time on my old blog and I felt inspired to take another crack at sharing some delicious vegan goodies I made recently. My birthday was a few days ago and I made myself some Vegan Pumpkin Cheesecake Bites! I can't say I made this up because it's very similar to a recipe from Isa Chandra Moskowitz for Mini Raspberry Cheesecakes. I liked the idea of the original recipe when I made it, buuuuuttttttt I don't like berries and chocolate so I wanted to switch it up. I was hoping this recipe could be transformed into something I was stoked about. I hope I inspire someone to try to make them too! 

Crust Ingredients: 
​8 oz of ginger snap cookies
1/3 cup all purpose flour
2 tablespoons of sugar
1/4 cup melted coconut oil
2 tablespoons non dairy milk

​Cheesecake Ingrediants:
1/2 cup cashews soaked in water overnight
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/3 cup mashed banana
9 ounces of firm tofu
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons coconut oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2/3 cups of sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 tea spoon salt
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Drizzle:
1/2 cup chocolate chips
​1 teaspoon coconut oil
Baking Tools:
12 cup muffin tin
cupcake liners
food processor or blender
​Standard mixin' spoons and such

Step One: Preheat your oven to 350 and prep your muffin tin with your liners. 
Step Two: Begin to make the crust by blending the cookies, flower, and sugar in a food processor until nice and crumbly. Drizzle in the melted coconut oil and non diary milk until well incorporated. Sometimes things in my food processor gets stuck in the corners and doesn't mix in so I give a quick mix with a spatula afterwards as well. 
Step Three: Evenly distribute the cookie mixture into your muffin tin. The mixture will be pressed firm down into the bottom of each liner to make a nice firm crust. When I made these last time, the original recipe called for so much crust mixture that my cheesecakes were half crust and I did not like it! With the amount of ingredients listed, your cheesecakes should be about 1/4 crust in proportion when finished. 
Step Four: Bake the crusts for about 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, set to the side to cool, but leave the oven on. While crusts are cooling, begin your filling. 
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Step Five: Rinse out your food processor unless you decide to blend your filling another way. Add all the filling ingredients to the food processor and blend until smooth. It should more or less look like your standard pumpkin pie filling when blended.

Step Six: Spoon the filling over your now cooled crusts leaving about 1/4 inch to the top of the liner. I will admit this recipe makes more filling than you need and I've even scaled it back from the original! I really dislike food waste so one of these days I'll get it just right.

Step Seven: Place back into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes. Check them after about 20 minutes and bake longer if needed. Surface should look firm and almost bread-like but the filling should still have some wiggle and bounce. 

Step Eight: Set the cheesecakes to the side to cool. Once cheesecakes are cool enough to touch, begin prepping chocolate drizzle by melting the chocolate and coconut oil together. You could get very fancy with a double boiler, but I'm a lazy chef and used the microwave.

Step Nine: Use a spoon or other utensil to drizzle the melted chocolate over the top of the pan. It doesn't have to be beautiful because it's going to taste delicious no matter what! 

Step Ten: Place in the fridge for 2-3 to completely cool and set before serving. And that's it! 
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I think these dudes are pretty dang delicious. I love making these mini because it's easy to just have one and not suddenly realized I've eaten a whole pie. I also love the chewiness of the ginger snap crunch with the silkiness of the pumpkin filling. I've never quite found a pumpkin pie recipe that I liked, but this one might be it! If you make them, I would love to hear how they turned out!