No bread is an island

...entire of itself. (With apologies to John Donne!)
I live and breathe breadmaking. I’m an evangelist who would like everyone to make his or her own bread. I want to demystify breadmaking and show it as the easy everyday craft that it is. To this end I endeavour to make my recipes as simple and as foolproof as I possibly can.

I call my blog 'No bread is an island' because every bread is connected to another bread. So a spicy fruit bun with a cross on top is a hot cross bun. This fruit dough will also make a fruit loaf - or Chelsea buns or a Swedish tea ring...
I'm also a vegan, so I have lots of vegan recipes on here - and I'm adding more all the time.

Wednesday 4 April 2012

HOMEMADE VEGAN CHEESE

Sunday 8th April.
Gave a taste to my son this morning, who reported that it was similar to brickdust! It's true it's a little gritty - next time I'll use bought ground almonds.

Wednesday 4th April.
Just had another go at making some vegan cheese - this time from scratch.

I took a look at some of the recipes on line, made a list of ingredients common to several of them, and 'winged' it a bit. I ground some flaked almonds and just began adding things:

25g ground almonds
25g gram flour
1 tsp smoked paprika
10g nutritional yeast ('nooch')
1 tsp 'Free and easy' cheese sauce powder

25g tahini

1 teaspoon lemon juice

9g EVOO

I mixed the dried ingredients, then added the wet ones and kept stirring with a table knife. It came together very easily, then I pressed it into the bottom of a small dish. After a couple of hours in the fridge I brought it out and took a couple of slices off it.

Doesn't look a whole lot different to the first lot I did - but it has a much deeper level of flavour

I'm quite impressed - both with the ease of assembly and the flavour and 'feel' of it. I put some on a pizza I was making, and it absolutely added to the overall flavour.


 My daughter thought it was “Fine”, which is all I was after, really.

The central components here, I feel, are the almonds, gram flour and tahini - and perhaps the EVOO. The rest is just flavouring and can be altered at whim.

I'm happier with these ingredients as a base for experimentation - I try not to use much soya, and I generally steer clear of marg - but this I can play around with for a bit.


21st March.
Following a recipe posted by Tezza on Wildfood, I made my first vegan cheese this morning:

50g marg (Pure in this case)
50g soya flour
8g yeast extract (Morrison's own - it's cheaper and just as good. Looks a little darker if anything)

Melt the marg and yeast extract together, then add the flour. Mix with a dessertspoon at first, but then get your hands in and bring it together like a stiff bread dough. This makes a small block which will keep in the fridge for quite along time, I feel. There's the basis here for lots of playing about - with olive oil, nooch - and all sorts of other flavourings. Chilli cheese - now there's a thought! :)


Cheap and cheerful


And slices nicely!

I'd never thought of making my own cheese until I saw Tezza's thread, but there's quite a few recipes on the net when you look around. 

I shall be experimenting with this over the coming months, I'm sure!

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