My 20th post!
I’ve been wanting to make vegan cheese from scratch for ages, but never got round to ordering some agar agar powder.
My recipe was inspired by a lot of current recipes which I found on the internet, but my biggest influence was this
one: http://www.vegangela.com/2011/10/15/homemade-vegan-cheese/
This recipe mentioned that the resulting cheese wasn’t creamy, so I added vegan cream to mine to solve this. The author also mentioned that if made plain, this cheese wasn’t too tasty, so I made sure to pack mine with delicious smoky flavours.
My cheese came out a little softer than expected (texture-wise think of a stiffer Vegusto No-moo melty –http://vegusto.co.uk/no-moo-cheese/6-no-moo-melty-7640144054052.html), but this was O.K. as it meant that I was able to spread it onto my toast or an oat-cake (perhaps more agar powder and less vegan cream / oil would produce a harder cheese?).
You will need a suitable mould to set the cheese in. My other half has a big glass bowl which is separated into quarters in order to put party nibbles in it. These compartments just so happened to be perfect for setting cheese in! A couple of ramekins would also work well.
Vegan Cheese Recipe:
Makes 2 “cheeses”.
Ingredients:
½ x cup nutritional yeast
1 x cup raw cashews
1 x tsp asafoetida
1 x tsp salt
1 x tsp garlic powder
1 ½ x tsp smoked paprika
½ x tsp chilli flakes
1 ¾ x cups soya milk
10 x tsp agar powder
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 x tbsp tahini
1 x tbsp fresh lemon juice
½ x tbsp cider vinegar
1 x tbsp soya cream
Method:
Whiz up the cashews in a food processor until you get a fine powder.
Add the asafoetida, salt, garlic powder, paprika and chilli flakes, whiz some more.
Add the soya milk to a pan, whisk in the agar and bring to a simmer. When the agar has dissolved, pour into the food processor (whilst whizzing) a tablespoon at a time. Don’t allow the agar-milk to cool or else it will set.
Add the oil, lemon juice, vinegar and cream and whiz until smooth.
Quickly pour into a greased mould, cover and refrigerate overnight. You will probably need to run a knife around the edges in order to remove the cheese from the mould.
Perfect for cheese on toast, on crackers, or melted into soya milk to make a scrummy “cheese sauce”.
Flash-Gordonette…x
