@thesocialistchef

Spirited Away: Zeniba’s cheesecake – 26th January

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TheChef

Nothing that happens is ever forgotten, even if you don’t remember it. ~Zeniba

You’re just a kid, but you know you shouldn’t be here. Why is there so much food? Something is wrong… we shouldn’t be eating so much, but it looks so good!

For those of you who haven’t seen Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece Spirited Away, please put this recipe down right now, forget the cheesecake for a couple of hours, and go and find it. A spellbinding tale exploring growing up, consumerism and the importance of clinging to our beliefs, ideals and individuality amid the rat-race of baying for capitalism’s scraps in return for feeding its endless, mindless consumption, scraps which turn out to be worthless in the end.

The only difference is if we don’t start asking questions about our food, we face a fate much worse than being turned into pigs. Some of us are already there, anyway.

This recipe is inspired by Yubaba’s benevolent and wise twin sister sharing cake and tea with Chihiro and No-face. Like the duality of human nature under capitalism, she is the opposite side of the coin to her cruel and greedy sister: friendly and warm, she finds a way to put Chihiro on the right track. It’s a beautifully well-written scene that encapsulates the true warmth of home amid the hustle and bustle of Zeniba’s small house as she pours tea, offers cake, and takes out her knitting.

Souffle-style Japanese cheesecake (serves 8-12)

This Japanese-style cheesecake uses a meringue as a base, which gives it a unique, cloudlike and spirit-world-ly texture. It also means you can use a fraction of the more resource-intensive ingredients like cheese and sugar, compared to a British or American cheesecake. Even No-face stops his mindless consumerism to savour his slice politely!

I wanted to celebrate two ingredients I think we should be eating a lot more of in the UK; goats cheese and honey. Goats milk and cheese need a lot less water, land and feed to produce than the equivalent amount of cows milk products – according to the Open University, a kilo of goats cheese carries just over half of the carbon footprint of a kilo of cheddar and a third of that of a kilo of Parmesan. It’s also a nutritional gold mine, full of calcium, protein and vitamins A and D. Goat farming offers a model of sustainability that outshines many other forms of livestock agriculture. Unlike cows, goats can thrive on marginal lands that are unsuitable for crops or other livestock. Their grazing habits allow them to consume vegetation that might otherwise go unused, reducing the need for chemical herbicides and naturally controlling invasive plant species (FAO, 2020). I used goats curd from White Lake Dairy, an award-winning farm and cheesemaker based in Somerset. I came across them through Emergent Generation, but you can check them out here.

It is estimated that about one-third of the food we eat relies on bee pollination. As bees visit flowers in search of nectar and pollen, they transfer pollen between plants, enabling plants to reproduce and produce fruits and seeds. This vital ecological service not only supports biodiversity but also sustains food production for humans and wildlife. Three bumblebee species have become extinct in recent decades. The recent European Red List for Bees reports that almost one in ten species of wild bee face extinction, and over the past 50 years, half the bee, butterfly and moth species studied in the 2013 State of Nature Report have declined. We can directly link these declines to changes in the way we farm. The intensification of agriculture has led to the destruction of habitat, and what is left is becoming increasingly fragmented. Further habitat loss is driven by urbanisation, and insect pollinators are also affected by the heavy use of pesticides and herbicides, the effects of climate change, and disease. (Wildlife Trust, 2025)

Supporting your local beekeepers or projects like Humble Bee or the Bee Coalition helps them to support their bees to keep on doing their thing. I used honey from the ancient Fennoscandian wooded meadows of the Latvian nature farm Bekas, part of Project GrassLIFE to restore EU priority grasslands and promote their multiple uses.

  • 130g goats curd
  • 1tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 50ml oat or hazelnut milk
  • 3 eggs
  • 50g demerara or golden caster sugar
  • 30g white spelt flour
  • 15g cornflour
  • Natural honey, for the finishing touch

Place the cheese, oil and plant milk into a round bottomed bowl set over a pan of gently simmering water. Mix well until you have a smooth and creamy mixture. Take the bowl off the heat and let it rest for 10 minutes at room temperature. Preheat the oven to 160C, and grease and line the base of a 15cm cake pan. Don’t use a springform cake tin. Separate the eggs and keep the yolks to one side for the moment. Beat the whites to stiff peaks, adding the sugar in three stages as you go.

Fold the yolks into the curd mixture. Next, gently fold in the whipped egg whites in three stages. Finally, sift over the flours and fold this in to combine. Line a large baking tray with a tea towel and place the cake pan on top. Pour hot water from the kettle into the tray so that the cake pan is submerged by about an inch. Bake for 20 minutes at 160C, then open the oven slightly for 5 seconds so that the steam can escape. Turn down the heat to 110C and continue to bake for 1 hour before removing the tray from the oven. While still warm, gently brush the surface with a generous layer of good quality honey. Allow the cake to cool slowly in the water. Once completely cold, remove from the cake pan using a metal spatula onto a serving plate. Serve with green tea or seasonal fruit and crème fraiche.