Hey ya’ll! It is officially fall! My very favorite time of year. So let’s kick it off with one of the greatest vegan desserts of our generation. These vegan pumpkin snickerdoodle cheesecake bars are beloved by all. Vegan or not! This vegan cheesecake is the most cheesecakiest vegan cheesecake in all the land. No cashew puree that tastes like cashews. This pumpkin cheesecake just straight up tastes like cheesecake! After testing these babies out the other day, we brought them to neighbors and my husband took them to work. Everyone we gave them to are not vegan and we got rave reviews from all.
So rest assured, you can bring these to any holiday party and they will be gobbled up. Not only that, they are incredibly easy to make. Mix graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar and melted vegan butter. Bake for a few minutes to make the perfect graham cracker crust. Then the rest you just puree all together in a blender until very smooth. Pour into the crust, bake, top with cinnamon sugar, bake again and boom! Let them cool and you have yourself the most absolutely amazing fall treat.
Here’s the deal with the snickerdoodle topping. When sprinkled on top and baked, it just kind of melds with the cheesecake but doesn’t melt. That is what I prefer, so it is more like a snickerdoodle. The topping remains a bit crunchy like the cookie version. However, if you prefer a more melted topping, more crème brûlée-like, you can create a foil tent over the cheesecake bars when you pull them out of the oven. That will cause the topping to melt.
These vegan pumpkin snickerdoodle cheesecake bars are a fall essential. The ingredients may seem a little strange at first, but once you taste one of these bars, you will understand that it all makes total sense!
Vegan Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cheesecake Bars
Ingredients
Graham Cracker Crust
- 3 Cups Vegan graham cracker crumbs*
- 2 Tablespoons Brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
- 3/4 Cup Vegan butter, melted (I used Earth Balance)
Pumpkin Cheesecake
- 1 Block(15oz.) Firm tofu(not extra firm), drained and squeezed
- 16 Ounces Vegan cream cheese, I used Kite Hill(room temperature)
- 1/2 Cup Non dairy milk, I used soy milk(you may need more for blending)
- 1 Can(15oz.) Pumpkin (puree)
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 Cups Organic cane sugar
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons Cornstarch
- 1/3 Cup All purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
- Pinch of Nutmeg
- Pinch of Salt
Instructions
- Make the crust first. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees(F).
- Add the graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar and cinnamon to a large mixing bowl. Stir to combine. Then pour in the melted butter and stir to combine, making sure the butter is evenly distributed so all of the crumbs are moist.
- Grease or spray a 13x9 inch rectangular baking dish with non-stick spray.
- Pour the graham cracker mixture into the baking dish, and press it down evenly into the pan. I like to use a cup to smash the graham cracker crumbs down to make the crust.
- Bake the crust for 5 minutes, then remove it from the oven.
- Increase the oven temperature to 375 degrees(F) and make the filling.
- Drain the tofu and squeeze as much of the liquid out of the tofu over the sink with your hands as you can. If it starts to crumble that is fine, you are blending it.
- Add the tofu, cream cheese, milk, pumpkin, vanilla, sugar, cornstarch, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt to the blender. Blend on high, scraping down the sides as needed until the mixture is completely smooth. This may take a few minutes, depending on your blender. If your blender won't blend the mixture, drizzle in a little more non-dairy milk in until it blends properly.
- Pour the cheesecake mixture into the crust, smooth out and bang on the counter to remove any air bubbles.
- Bake the cheesecake for 20 minutes. In the meantime, mix together the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg for the topping.
- After 20 minutes, remove the cheesecake from the oven. Evenly sprinkle the topping onto the cheesecake and bake for another 20-25 minutes. Or until the cheesecake is firm. The center will still be slightly jiggly.
- Let cool for 4-6 hours. Or overnight. After the cheesecake cools to room temperature, place in the fridge. When ready cut into squares and serve. Keep in the fridge.
Notes
Nutrition
These are officially on my Thanksgiving menu! Thank you! 🧡🍂
Absolutely delicious! I’m not very good at baking and I normally shy away from recipes that require me to blend tofu, but I gave this one a shot and it exceeded my expectations. It is so rich and creamy. I’m not one for sweets normally, but I went back for seconds of these bars. Thanks for another amazing recipe, Lauren!
So glad you enjoyed! They are delicious aren’t they?
Made this tonight. So easy and sooo delicious!!
So delicious! I think because my graham cracker crumbs were so fine, I should have added a bit more butter to hold together better. But that didn’t affect the flavor one bit.Once in I realized that I did not have enough cream cheese (8 oz. short), so I paused and made some cashew cream as a replacement, and it worked wonderfully. Will definitely be making again! Great holiday dessert, makes a lot of servings.
Nice job!
Actually, after refrigerating overnight, the crust was perfect 🙂
Hello! This recipe looks amazing! I’ve got one question, would using a silken tofu work here or does it need to be regular tofu?
Thanks, love your stuff! Working my way through Southern Vegan, big fan so far:)
Yes we think silken tofu would work as long as you use less non-dairy milk to blend. Maybe just add in the milk as needed? We haven’t tried it so we can’t say for sure. Thanks for the question and feedback!
This was so easy to make and even more delicious than I expected! I ended up cutting portions and dropped them off to (non vegan) friends for them to try, They all loved it and were surprised it was vegan. Well done Lauren!
Would you happen to know if this can be frozen, or how long it keeps? I want to make it again but it would take me a while to finish it all 🙂
We haven’t tried freezing but think it might change the texture a bit. Feel free to try and let us know! They seem to keep well in the fridge (covered) for 3-5 days.
Hi! Would this recipe work if I put them in cupcake tin instead to make mini cheesecakes??
Hi! I was wondering if I could sub in a silken tofu instead? And what firmness if its possible?
Thank you!
Yes but be sure to use less liquid to blend. Just add in the milk as needed.
Hi Lauren, could you sub coconut milk for the vegan cream cheese? don’t have any v. cream cheese on hand at the moment.
No, we don’t recommend!
The pumpkin cheesecake filling part is delicious (though expensive, considering the two tubs of vegan cream cheese needed). If I make it again, I will not make the full 3 cups of graham cracker crumbs… in a 13×9 baking dish, my crust was very thick, especially compared to the filling. I also don’t think the crust tastes good… at all. Maybe I overbaked it? If I make it again, I will probably also leave off the “snickerdoodle” topping and just keep it as pumpkin cheesecake. Which, like I said earlier, is totally delicious; you wouldn’t know it’s vegan unless the baker told you themself. Makes me excited to trying more recipes from this site.
I tested this recipe to see if it would be a good fit for thanksgiving and HOLY MOLY… This exceeded my expectations! I’ve been looking for a delicious, creamy, close to dairy cheesecake recipe and this one is it. I had the leftovers in my fridge for four days and each day it tasted better! It makes a lot so I dropped off on friend’s porches and even my non-vegan friends loved it. Tastes great with a dollop of the Reddi Whip coconut whipped cream on top!
It’s personally one of my fave recipes on the blog too. Thanks for your feedback!
Can I make this in s springform pan??
Mine is in the oven now for Thanksgiving tomorrow! the cheesecake batter tastes amazing. It was a lot, too much for even half the recipe to fit into a Nutribullet so I ended up transferring the half and adding the remaining half into my processor (already out from making the graham crumbs) Seemed to work fine. I could eat the batter with a spoon and I may have, don’t judge! Too excited to wait to write a review but I’ll update it once I can try the final product.
These were amazing! And so easy. After you make the graham cracker crust, the rest just goes in the blender. Doesn’t get much more simple than that. Next time I might add a squeeze of lemon to the tofu-cream cheese blend, just to give it a tad more “tang” – but really this is wonderful. Would wow non-vegans, too. Thank you!
So easy to make! These were a hot for both the vegans and non-vegans alike at our thanksgiving dinner!
Would it work to just use 8 oz of cream cheese?
I’ve made this at least 5 times. It’s amazing. One of my all time favorite desserts. I highly recommend making it the day before you plan on eating it. I’ve even substituted strawberries and sugar for pumpkin during the summer and that was a huge hit with my non-vegan family.
This recipe is amazing! Would you be able to substitute the flour with gluten free flour (like Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Flour Mix)?
I really hate pumpkin and prefer sweet potatoes. Can I substitute sweet potatoes in your pumpkin recipes
so I tried this recipe after acquiring a whole pumpkin and needing to do something with it. I don’t even like sweet pumpkin or pumpkin spice but this was quite good. Your recipes are the best!