Would you like to know how to make vegan cheese and yogurt?

At last we´ve got the vegan recipe using cashews and enzymatic water as a natural culture.

After enjoying discovering how to make tasty recipes with different seeds I feel interested in their fermentation process to make vegetable yogurt and cheeses. Finding a nice cashew yogurt and vegan cheese recipe has taken us a very long time, nearly a whole year! But finally, here it is!

First attempts with no good results.

I started making yogurts from all types of vegan milks (hazelnut milk, tigernuts´, oats´…) . The first step was try to curdle it, as you do to make yogurt with animal milks. I had a lot of faliures in my attempts. It turns out that the culture used to ferment animal milks and vegan milks is not the same. Firstly I needed to find the right culture !

Homemade soy yogurt using as a culture organic soy yogurt ( bought from the shop )

Then I bought a soy yogurt and I tried curdle the soy milk that I made with the Chufamix. It worked! You have the recipe in this link. But I wasn´t satisfay becouse the fermentation was induced by an industrial soy yogurt, so the processit was no natural at all.

I also once tried using the gelatenous seaplant agar-agar. The result was this jelly dessert from walnuts milk that you have in this link. The texture and taste were nice, and you could also make it with hazelnuts, oats… doesn´t matter which plant milk you use, but IT´S NOT A REAL YOGURT BECAUSE IT´S NOT FERMENTED. With agar-agar we make a “false” yogurt that does not have the probiotic nutritional properties that we are looking for when we eat a yogurt or a vegan cheese.

Walnut and cocoa gelatine served us a yogurt.

I kept reserching on-line and in some raw cook books and finally I found the culture to make vegetable yogurt and cheeses: The “enzymatic water” or “rejuvelac”. It´s not the only option, I read about other cultures to ferment seeds, such as “kefir water”. But I try with it in Malaysia and I didn´t like the result. Maybe the tropical clime is not the best for fermentation.

After some attempts, I “reseted” my brain, start again from 0, and I get the key !

Anyway the process that we show you in this post using Chufamix, permits you to get a really raw and fermented liquid yogurt and fresh cheese.

And place ATENTION! Becouse you will get the yogurt and the vegan cheese in the same elaboration process!

But little by little, let´s start with the process used to make vegetable yogurt and cheeses with “enzymatic water”. You have the whole process divided into two videos in this post. As well as the videos we have included the written recipes:

1. The base: How to make enzymatic water
2. How to make cashew yogurt and cheese using enzymatic water.

1-Enzymatic water

First of all you have to make the enzymatic water. In the video I´ve made it with whole rye seeds, but I´ve also tried with durum wheat seeds and it works. I think that it works with any whole cereal seed (it´s till my own hypotesis). But be sure that if it´s not whole seed it doesn´t germinate !

Ingredients

For 1 litre of enzymatic water you´ll need 100 grams of whole cereal seeds (rye or durum wheat).

Depending on the temperature of your home, seeds will germinate in 2 or 4 days. You have more information to deeper understand the germination process in this link, but I think that seeing the video is enough to learn the main steps easily.

Preparation

When the seeds start to sprout and the first little root appears, they are germinated. At that point, you place the seeds into a clean jar and add 1 litre of water. As a lid, you may use a linum or cotton cloth.

Let it soak at room temperature for 24 hours and voilá! The enzymatic water is ready.

This special water is grey and when you smell it, it´s quite disgusting. When you shake it, some bubbles appear in the water. Drain the water and preserve it to make the yogurt and cheese.

Tips and alternatives

Enzymatic water can be used as a culture to make vegetable yogurt and chesees. You can also mix it with fruit juices to make probiotic refreshments. There are also people who drink it straight for it´s medicinal qualities, not because of the flavour!

Enzymatic water can be frozen. I´ve made yogurt and cheese with one month´s old water and the result was really nice. In this case, before using it as a culture let it warm up to room temperature, because if it´s very cold it doesn´t work well.

Germinated seeds can be used to make another litre of enzymatic water. To do that, let them rest for one day and repeat the process the next day. But you only can do it once, if you repeat this action the enzymatic water may wouldn´t has the “fermentation potential” that we desire to make yogurt and cheese.

Finally, you can eat germinated seeds in salads, soups or with beans… you can´t waste this nutritional jewel, because once the seeds have germinated… their nutritional value increases a lot!

2- Cashew yogurt and cheese with enzymatic water

Making yogurt and cheese with cashews is not a waste of money! I´ve tried with hazelnuts, tigernuts, peanuts, but the result is not as good as cashews. The next step will be to try with soy, coconut, peeled almonds and other options.

So I hope share with you more recipes soon. If you go faster than me, please, send your recipes to post them in the blog as our collaborator.

But for the moment, here you have the video recipe to make a tasty liquid yogurt and fresh cheese using CASHEWS. You have the whole writed description in this post belong this video.

Ingredients:

• 200 grams of cashews (you can add more, but not less!)
• 1 litre of enzymatic water (very important to follow the instructions of the video that you have in the begining of the post)
• a bit of salt
• lemon peel
• 2 dates (if you like sweet, I do it without!)

Preparation

1. Fill the Chufamix container with a litre of enzymatic water. Strain it as you see in the video.
2. Place all the ingredients in the filtering glass and insert it into the container. Blend for 2 minutes at the most.
3. Raise the filtering glass and press the cashew pulp gently with the mortar for 1 minute at the most.
4. Store the liquid yogurt in a bottle, put on the lid, let it rest for 10 minutes and keep it in the fridge. Before drinking it, you have to shake it a little. It´s like an “actimel” but natural version, an excellent probiotic and it´s delicious!
5. With the pulp you can make fresh cheese. Place the pulp into a jar and cover it with a linen or cotton cloth for respiration. Let it ferment at room temperature (20ºC) for at least 12 hours (If you live in a tropical climate, 8 hours may be enough!)
6. Once it has rested, remove the cloth and improve the cheese´s texture and flavour by mixing it with choped garlic, a sponful of oil, spices, some drops of lemon juice, a sponful of tahín… what ever you have on hand !

Tips and alternatives

The yogurt lasts for 3 to 5 days depending on the temperature of your fridge. In my house, I had to hide it so that it didn´t “disappear” before it expired!! It was so delicious, you could drink it in one sitting!!

The fresh cheese has the same expiry, but if you add lemmon juice (1 teaspoon) and a spoonful of tahín (sesame paste) or olive oil, a bit of salt, it will last for 7 to 10 days.

At the moment this is all, we will continue testing this recipe with other seeds, and if they “curdle” well, I will post them !