Tuesday, April 19, 2016

First highly successful batch of vegan seed cheese!

This batch uses Miyoko Schinner's recipe for Sharp Vegan Cheddar Cheese as its jumping-off point, but I've broken pretty radically from her recipe to allow for my food sensitivities, so I thought I'd post my version here.

  • 1 ½ c. pine nuts, soaked ~8 hrs. (I also used up about ¼ c. of hemp seeds in this batch)
  • ½ c. nutritional yeast flakes
  • ⅜ c. coconut yogurt
  • 1 T. genmai miso
  • ½ t. salt
  • 4 ½ T. agar flakes
  • ⅜ t. xantham gum
Blend the first 5 ingredients until smooth, starting with the pine nuts. Allow to culture until a cheesy "tang" is achieved (this batch went overnight, about 12 hours).

Pour the agar flakes into a small saucepan with about an inch of water. Heat to boiling, whisking frequently to dissolve the agar flakes. Add the xanthan gum and whisk to combine. Pour the cultured mixture in to the pot and cook on medium-low until the mixture is glossy and is beginning to pull away from the sides of the pot/leaves well-defined streaks in the bottom of the pot. Pour into a mold (I used a small metal cake tin with a push-through base) and allow to cool completely. Transfer to the fridge to chill.

When the "cheese" has chilled, de-mold and store wrapped in parchment paper and a baggie in the fridge.

As an additional note for anyone looking to replicate this, do not add the oil called for in Schinner's recipe — I got a gloopy mess of a "cheese" for my last batch. This was especially tragic given that the flavours were spot-on.

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