There are a ton of dandelion honey recipes, I just want to make sure that you end up with a honey that actually tastes like honey. Most people will be very skeptical when they hear about dandelion honey. I was too. But trust me, if done right, this stuff tastes very much like honey.

(Recipe in Danish here)

Look at that beautiful yellow powder a.k.a. pollen. We want that  and all the other fragile flower scent adding components in our honey. Not in our sink. So…

 Do NOT wash the flowers.

To get little animals out, spread the flower buds on a kitchen towel for a while and they will crawl away. If you are afraid of pollution, Make sure to pick the flowers away from busy roads. If you are afraid of dog piss, consider it rather unlikely for dogs to piss in the middle of a dandelion feel and don’t pick flowers were dogs were typically mark their territory. A safe place will typically be a big field of dandelions if you are lucky enough to have that around. Also note that the 20 to 30 minutes of boiling will kill any bacteria left. And lastly, remember, that the bees won’t wash the flowers before they bring home the pollen and mix it with the regurgitated nectar when making their honey. So why should you? (Unless you live in an area infested by some sort of slug or insect which leaves a poison that you know won’t be neutralized by boiling. Then take your precautions)

Add other edible – and aromatic – flowers

Dandelion is one of the first flowers available in abundance for the bees in the spring. Depending on what area you live in, other flowers will be the ones you typically associate with the smell of honey. If possible you should  add other edible flowers to the mix. Some that have a really strong scent. I live in the middle of a canola flower/rapeseed field this year so I have the opportunity to add those. And that really takes the honey to a whole new level, since canola honey is one of the most common bee honeys available in my country. So the honey association my brain makes when eating this homemade vegan honey is very strong. Other flowers to add are: Wild hibiscus flowers, lavender, Alaskan fire weed, meadowsweet and others. Disclaimer: please only consume flowers that you are 100% certain are edible. If you die from poisoning do not come back complaining that I didn’t warn you.

Adding apples in one form or another provides you with a more complex taste and also mimics some of the fruity acidity present in honey.

What about the green stuff?

Some recipes call for removing the green parts of the dandelions. While this can be done it is rather time-consuming. What I found through my experimentations experience was, that they do add a little chlorophyllic flavor (like a hint of Earl Grey tea), but I only found it a little overpowering in the batch where I left the flowers soaking in the flower juice overnight like some recipes call for. So I recommend leaving the green stuff on (like in the picture below) and then strain the flowers from the juice shortly after boiling it. This will save you a lot of work instead of having to cut them off.

If you insist on cuttin them off, only remove the bottom couple of millimeters (1/8″) or you risk cutting away the nectar.

One bee can carry 25 mg of pollen back to the hive in one flight. You can pick a lot more than that in a single trip to the front yard or wherever you happen to be blessed with dandelions. A bee will during its entire lifetime produce about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey. Consider that. When you are done with my recipe you will have produced at least 7,5 dl or 3.2 cups (and I know this is not a competition, but that’s 150 teaspoons – or 1800/12th teaspoons – if you really want to go there).

When picking dandelions – get the most flavor from them

– First of all, pick flowers away from busy roads. Also pick flowers away from where dogs will typically pee (lamp posts, hedges etc.)

– The warmer the weather the more nectar they contain. If possible go pick them on a warm sunny day.

– Before nipping off the flowers, gently tap it to shake off any little animals. Also have a quick look at the flowers and go for those with the least amount of habitants.

– Cut the flowers off just at the end of the stalk.

– The bigger the flower, the more nectar = yum!

– Theoretically, If you’re unable to pick enough flowers for one entire batch, you could put them in the fridge or even freezer along the way and save them for when you have enough. Some of the taste might get lost this way though and it’s my impression that boiling them directly after picking yields the most flavor.

– Pick flowers that are open. This way you access all the nice scents. This also means you can’t pick them in the evening, since they close up. Nap time! Also, you can’t pick them if a rain is coming (or happening) because they will close up to protect their pollen and nectar from washing away. (The same reason you shouldn’t wash them, see?)

How to make vegan honey

• Pick the flowers
• Boil them with water to harvest the fragrance of them.
• Strain the flowers away and reduce the flower water together with sugar and a splash of lemon.

How long to reduce it

I recommend taking your time with this. Bring it to a gentle simmer in the beginning and reduce that to only evaporation towards the end. This way the water will slowly but surely evaporatorate. When about 2/3 of the syrup is left, you need to keep an extra eye on it, because all of a sudden it gets really thick! This is also where you can start taking little samples out to check the consistency. You want it thick but still runny and you want it to be clear not dark (see pictures for reference). Thicker than agavesyrup, but definitely not spreadable. I want to say like an organic barley or corn syrup but of course I can’t know what that looks like in your area If you have used regular pure white sugar, your hunny will look lighter than in these pictures.

Check Consistency: Place a small plate or bowl in the refrigerator. When you want to test the consistency, you pour half a teaspoon syrup on the cold plate and it will quickly come to room temperature.

Color: The honey in these pictures are made with a light brown cane sugar. This yields a slightly darker color than when using pure white sugar. If you reduce the syrup too much, it will be very dark, not be transparent and also smell slightly burned sort of over caramelized.

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Vegan dandelion honey

Try this amazing recipe for vegan dandelion honey - that tastes so much like honey you wont believe it! When the dandelion honey is sufficiently reduced you'll end up with ABOUT 8 dl or 3,4 cups or 1,120 kg or 2,5 lb. - but check other tips in the post, like color, to be more certain of when it has reduced sufficiently.

Keyword condimnent, DIY, vegan

Servings 8 dl

Author Nina fra Plantepusherne

Ingredienser

• 100 dandelion flower heads 100 weigh about 100 g (3,5oz) medium to large heads
• 2 apples 2 apples is about 500 g or 17 ounces. Cut into chunks. Seeds removed.
• 1 l water 1 liter is 4 cups
• 50 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice 50 ml is ust under 1/4 cup
• 9 dl sugar (white or light brown cane sugar) 9 dl is 3.6 cups. Note that in some countries white sugar isn't vegan.
• 1 micro pinch of salt

Preferably but optional if not easily accessible: Another bunch of edible, aromatic flowers. I added:

• 30-40 tops of canola/rapeseed flowers

Sådan gør du

• You don't need to remove the green stuff unless you want to soak flowers in the flower juice overnight. I didn't do this.
• Put flowers, apples, lemon juice and salt and pour over the water. Put on the lid and let it boil gently for 20-30 minutes.
• Strain away the flowers and apples, saving the flower water in a pan. Pour in the sugar and let it simmer. Don't put on the lid! You are allowed to stir it occasionally in the beginning, but only then. Recrystallization is just waiting to happen if you stir it too much once the water starts evaporating! You want to aim for a very low simmer. It can very quickly get to an aggressive boil, and we just want a gentle steam of water evaporating from it.<br> After several hours it should have reduced to about 2/3.
• When you have reached the desired consistency (as described in the blog post) turn off the heat and pour into smaller containers. Continue with turning it into vegan creamed hunny if you wish.

Noter

-Apples: if you can't get apples, a 1/3 cup or 80 mL of some good quality apple juice will probably do. Omit the same amount of water and add the apple juice together with the sugar.

-Shelf life: With the extremely high sugar content the shelflife is practically indefinite. I have had samples sitting on my kitchen counter for a year without going bad. If you really want, you can even freeze it. It won't change the consistency and it doesn't even set hard because of the high sugar content.

-It got too thick! - or too thin ... See notes on this below.

It got too thick! 

If you accidentally reduced it too much, you can make it a bit thinner by adding some boiled water. But you may have crossed the line of no return, if it got very very thick because then it will have a slightly burnt taste and you won’t be able to get rid of that. Too thin is always better…

It got too thin!

If, when the honey has cooled down, you realize it is much too runny, there is always the option to put it back on the stove to let it evaporate more. This can be time consuming though. I stumbled upon a trick where you simply add a little (home)powdered sugar into the still hot dandelion sirup. This will melt and thicken the mix. You can also leave it on the kitchen table with a piece of cloth over to protect it from dust. During a couple of weeks it will evaporate even more. I have managed to make the creamed honey with a batch that I thought was way too runny so don’t worry too much about that.

And now that you’ve made a batch of beautiful aromatic dandelion honey, you are ready to take it to the next level: Vegan creamed hunny.

         

Indlægget The best vegan dandelion honey – that actually tastes like honey blev først udgivet på PlantePusherne - vegansk mad.

Danish recipe

Does it taste like honey?

Yes! Follow my recipe for dandelion honey. It has some details, tips and tricks that I find other recipes are leaving out, so follow it for a result that will definitely taste like honey.

If you have a favorite dandelion recipe or even made it already, by all means go ahead and use that
This hunny is sweet, very aromatic – and smells like flowers in bloom! Considering there are thousands and thousands of different variations of honey, this could very easily be just another version.
I let my father in law (a professor in insect pathology) taste it. Whenever I have him taste vegan versions of foods he will be the first to say “it’s nice… but it’s not really like [insert original]”. When I let him taste the Hunny he simply said:

“Well, that… sure tastes like… some good old flower honey!”

What is creamed (aka set, churned, candied or whipped) honey?

Contrary to what some believe creamed honey is not liquid honey that has been whipped or churned airy. Next time you see a recipe on Pinterest claiming you can make creamed honey in five minutes by whipping it, please refer them to this or any other post clarifying the matter. If you whip honey, sure it gets lighter and a little thicker because you fill it with little bubbles of air, and the light color and slightly thickened texture makes it resemble creamed honey. A little. (And probably also enhances oxidation and destroys some of the fragile delicate scents) But it does not creamed honey make!

Creamed honey is a honey that has undergone a natural process of crystallizing with tiny, tiny crystals leaving it firm, silky smooth (sometimes slightly melt-in-your-mouth-grainy), spreadable and – well – creamy. So technically, it’s crystallized, but I will admit the word creamed describes as much better as there is absolutely no grits in a perfectly crystallized, well creamed, honey. So the word crystallization can be a bit misleading, but now you know:

Crystallization – it’s not all bad! And size DOES matter

On churning/stirring

Some of the misconception might stem from the fact that stirring/churning is often used in the process of creaming the honey. But this is merely a way to control the crystallization, it is not the churning that makes the honey set. I am beginning to think that the stirring also encourages crystallization, at least under certain circumstances like when making a high sugar content syrup. It would make sense (read my chapter on sugar and crystallization below). So if you feel nothing is happening with your honey, it might be a good idea to start stirring it regularly.

How often? That depends on the time it takes for your batch to firm up. If it’s 10 days I would stir once a day. If it’s 24 hours I would try to do it every couple of hours or whenever I remembered. (And so if you really want to know before hand, you’d have to make a test batch to see what you are dealing with). Stop the stirring, once the Hunny is so firm, it won’t collaps after you ‘disturb it’. A gentle one minute stirring each time should suffice. Do it by hand or maybe with a handmixer on lowest speed. Use clean utensils!

Why creamed honey?

In Scandinavia we have a tradition for creamed honey. I have a theory as to why this is. If you live in a warm climate the honey (which is liquid when taken from the bees) will keep liquid for a long time because of the warmer temperature. In Scandinavia with our cold temperatures, the honey will naturally chrystalize more easily. So apparently we have found a way to control the crystallization process so we won’t get uneven or split honey, but simply perfectly crystallized creamed honey which will stay at the same consistency without further undesired crystalization when kept at average temperatures.

The magic of sugar and crystallization

Sugar has the ability to recrystallize on its own after you have melted it. If you add crystals to syrup that you have melted, the melted sugar molecules will look at the crystals and go “hey we want to look like that too!” And soon all of the syrup will have recrystallized. It is like handing the sugar molecules a construction manual and it knows what to do. Stirring speeds up this process (I assume this is because the ‘manual’ is sort of distributed evenly for all the sugar molecules to see). It can be a pain in the butt if you are trying to melt sugar and you accidentally stir it too much or you have missed some sugar crystals on the side of the pan and all of a sudden you are left with a semi recrystallized mess.

But if we control the size of the crystals that the syrup is using as a manual, that is one way to get the perfectly creamed vegan honey that we are after. And that is precisely what I am doing here, breaking down the big sugar crystals (by simply melting regular sugar when making the dandelion honey) and then nudging the Hunny to build up again but with smaller sized crystals. Brilliant, eh?

How to crystallize (cream) the Hunny

Basically there are two ways to do this. If we would just let the syrup sit, no matter the temperature, it would eventually crystallize into random sized crystals. But there are ways to control the outcome and also speed up the process. Natural crystallization definitely gave the smoothest Hunny – a characteristic that is passed on to any Hunny that you seed it with – see picture above. The powder seeded honey yielded a melt-in-your-mouth type graininess which you get from some honeys. Regular stirring may have smoothed it out further but I didn’t do that this time.

We want the temperature to be between 10°C (50°F) and 18°C (64°F) with

14°C (57°F) aparently being the optimum.

1) Natural Crystalization – most convinsing texture

…is where we control the environment and the process to let the perfect crystallization (hopefully) spontaneously occur. The most important thing is keeping the right temperature and water content. Also by stirring the Hunny once in a while, we are constantly breaking down the crystals that are forming, into the smallest possible crystals, in fact so small your tongue can’t detect them. Stirring also speeds things up so instead of months, this should only take days or weeks.

Divide the dandelion honey into smaller batches. Place the jars chilled. Mine ocured spontaneously at about 11° (52’C) which still yielded a perfect consistency.
If you want a free lesson in patience wait and do nothing. If not, gently stir the hunny for about 30 seconds daily. Making sure you scrape down the sides where the crystals will turn to start forming.

Most likely, it will look like absolutely nothing is happening at first, like maybe a week. Then suddenly it starts getting a little cloudy and you wonder if the jar you used was actually clean or not. It probably was, it’s just crystals forming on this side of that makes it look a little dusty. From this moment will probably only take a few days before the batch is completely set. The day you can tilt the jar and the honey stays still, don’t stir anymore. Eat as it is or leave it uncovered for further time to firm it up even more.

I’ve had batches in the fridge that spontaniuosly started crystalizing after months (without stirring). So have patience

2) Crystallization through seeding – less convincing texture

This is where we seed the syrup with the right sized sugarcrystals as a starter. If you have a batch of perfectly formed/crystallized dandelion honey, this is a perfect starter for seeding.

Another method I tested was to take regular light brown cane sugar and grind it into a fine powder or crystals to be technical. I read that some honey producers use powderd honey crystals as a starter, so I figured why not. I tested with sugar that I had pulverized in a coffee grinder. 

PS I am not 100% sure if this sugar was dissolved in the syrup and what happened was actually just natural crystallization that would have taken place without the addition. But I think it was seeding, and here is the result:

 

When seeding you want your starter to amount to 10% of the total weight

So if your syrup at weighs 286 g you need to add roughly 28.6 g.

(To be precise you multiply with 0.11 – so to your 286 g you would add 286×0.11= about 31 gr)

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Vegan creamed honey through seeding

Note that if you are measuring your starter powder in volume (spoons or milliliters) you can't use the method of multiplication with 0.11. You need to weigh it. If you are using an already creamed honey as a starter, you can use a volume measurement. So to a batch off 240 ml you would ad just about 24 mL

Author Nina fra Plantepusherne

Ingredienser

You need

• A batch of dandelion honey app. 7.5 dl or 3 2 cups
  
• And as a seeding starter you need either

a) Powdered sugar (from regular white or light brown cane sugar)

• If the dandelion honey weighs 1100 g you need 110 g of sugar.
• Pulverize the sugar into a fine powder. You should get 1 cup of powdered sugar from ½ cup of sugar.
• OR if you have it

b) Some already firmed Hunny

• 10 % The weight in seeding hunny: If your hunny weighs 980 g you need 98 g of seeding hunny. If it's 750 mL 3.2 Cups you need 75 mL (1/3 cup) of seeding hunny.

Sådan gør du

• Both your dandelion syrup and the seeding starter should be about room temperature. If it's too hot, you risk melting the starter crystals.
• Add the seeding hunny or powder to a bowl. Stir in some of the liquid dandelion syrup to make it smooth. Stir it till it looks completely even in color - this may take a couple of minutes. I recommend doing this by hand and if using a machine do it gently so you don't stir too much air into the mix.
• Poor in the rest of the syrup and continue to stir until it is evenly distributed.
• Divide into smaller jars and set them aside chilled (about 14C or 57F) until the crystallization has taken place. In my experience the crystallization takes place very fast (about 24 hours) so it shouldn't be necessary to stir it but otherwise do it for about 30 seconds each day.
• After it has set, you can still leave it only covered by a cloth, to let more water evaporate and get a firmer consistency through lower water content.

Noter

- Chilled environment: It needs to be between 10°C (50°F) and 18°C (64°F) and as close to 14°C (57°F) you can get. If your refrigerator has a vegetable drawer this will often be perfect. Or check your garage or a chilly garden shed, they might work.

If crystallization fails

Wrong crystals and/or split honey: If for some reason, your syrup has started crystallizing into very big crystals there are different ways to salvage it.

1) One way is to re-melt everything and start all over. I found the best way is this: The syrup must be in a heat resistant jar like glass for instant. Boil some water and pour it in to a pan place the jar of semi crystallized syrup in it. Let it slowly melt over the course of a couple of hours. Now you can start over again making sure the temperature is right and maybe even stirring the honey to control the size of the crystals. And hopefully you will get the perfect result this time.

2) Another way is to break down the big unwanted crystals into smaller ones. This can be done by placing the crystals in a clean mortar and pestle simply grinding the mess into is fine crystals as possible. Pour the syrup back in the jar and let it crystallize properly on its own. Theoretically you could use a blender for this but I haven’t tried how this works and don’t know if the blender is able to get to all the big crystals. This would probably work great as seeding honey The powder seated honey yielded a melt-in-your-mouth type graininess which you get from some honeys. I would suggest only using this batch ass starter/seeding Hunny, since there may be a reason to believe a high water content was the reason it didn’t set perfect and then it would probably not get firm enough even after further crystalization.

If crystallization won’t take place

Crystallization can take place within days or weeks or if it’s naturally occurring even months. If nothing has happened at all in about three weeks, you may want to start troubleshooting.
The water content of the syrup may be too high. Adjust it according to the Tips in my recipe. The temperature may not be right for crystallization to take place. Keep it between 10 and 18, the closer to 14°C (57F) the better. Your sugar or the flowers that you used may have a different ratio of different sugars, and are therefore acting in an unpredictable away. Lastly, there is the water content a.k.a. sickness. The consistency of it is described further in my dandelion honey post. Or you used alternative ingredients other than those in my recipe and there is a hidden factor that you were missing. Or maybe the temperature at which the syrup is being reduced is actually important for for the crystallization, and I just happened to hit the perfect temperature without knowing what it was. I’m sorry but if those suggestions don’t help, I don’t know what went wrong In that case I encourage you to read both blog posts from start to finish – there may be important details you missed the first time.

This recipe or guide is based on my experience through numerous attempts at ‘honey’ making and the research I have done Reading articles on crystallization and watching countless YouTube videos on honey and bee keeping in the last year. I am no expert, but I hope to inspire you to play around with it and hopefully making it even easier for some to go vegan. I will be updating the post with pictures and additional information as I go through more experiments.

I hope this is enough to get you going – good luck and enjoy your vegan creamed honey

Indlægget Nina’s Hunny guide – How to make actual creamed (firm) vegan ‘honey’ blev først udgivet på PlantePusherne - vegansk mad.

Danish recipe

But then I came up with something I like to call royal aquafaba coating. Because the best result I got, was simply from dipping the chocolate covered marzipan eggs directly into the aquafaba and then dabbing it into the icing sugar. I got a nice firm perfectly white coating and came close enough to the Christmas treat to blog about it here: Snowballs. It is definitely not as hard as sugar dragee but it looks pretty close end it allows you to make a very thin coating that you can apply to round shapes like say… snowballs! But I wanted more. I wanted color. I have previously had fun with coloring shredded coconut with fruits and veggies (see for yourself)…

… and I have been wanting to try the same with sugar. So with Easter coming up I had a good excuse to try it out with these Easter eggs. It worked pretty well, just note that the coating won’t be nearly as firm as original dragee. It is more fragile when you bite into it, but it looks pretty, and it holds color

How to dye the sugar

(Note that you can skip this step, and just make white eggs using store-bought icing sugar. And you can probably even buy powdered food color and simply add that to the icing sugar). I had fresh turmeric root (for yellow) and blueberries (for shades of pink and purple) in the house. For half a cup of white caster sugar, you need at least about 2 teaspoons of very heavily colored fruit juice. Things like wild blueberries (the ones that will color your tongue blue), Turmeric and probably beets will do the job. Simply juice the turmeric root or mash the blueberries to get a couple of teaspoons out of them. Stir the juice into the sugar until it is completed distributed. Spread it out as thin as possible and let it dry out, preferably in a dehydrator. When it is completely dry, put it in a coffee grinder or small food processor and process until you have a fine powder. Before and after processing into powder:

Shape and let the marzipan eggs dry out

Don’t worry about getting the surface 100% perfect. The chocolate will cover up and smooth them out a bit.I recommend letting the marzipan dry out a bit once you’ve made your egg shapes. Firstly, it tastes better this way. Also it sticks better to the toothpick and you won’t get marzipan goo in the chocolate when you dip it.

Apply royal aquafaba coating
So now all you’ve got to do is dip the marzipan into chocolate, let it set and then coat with the aquafaba and lastly the icing sugar. And then of course the hardest part: The waiting. It will take at least 12 hours for the coating to get completely solid.

Royal aquafaba coating method

Your aquafaba should be about the consistency of that you find in a can. It’s OK if it has salt. You dip the chocolate eggs ONCE in the aquafaba. Then you tap it hard to let excessive drip off. It should cling to and cover the entire surface and not be shed off. By sort of moving it around as if you were fighting a fairy sized enemy with a sword you make sure it is evenly distributed the moment you start dabbing it into the icing sugar. This should be done very gently, but quickly, sort of dabbing the egg multiple times. Every time you lift it up you turn it a bit before dabbing it again making sure all aquafaba is saturated with icing sugar.

It may take a little practice to get the right amount of aquafaba. Too much and the icing sugar will form uneven lumps (Which you may be able to press flat). Too little and you won’t get enough icing sugar to attach. Set the eggs aside and keep an eye on them while you continue with the next ones. As soon as wet/dark areas arise, you apply more icing sugar. Make sure to tap it along the way to get dry lumps of icing sugar off. When all areas have been covered, you can sort of squeeze them between the palms of your hands or fingers to get the coating even tighter.

It may take a little practice. You want to find the perfect balance between applying too much or too little icing sugar. But if you got the aquafaba dipping right, the amount of icing sugar it can hold should be pretty perfect.

Here’s a very primitive you showing you the process of the dipping and the dabbing.

And if all goes well, you should end up with a pretty handful of vegan aquafaba Easter eggs. Like so:

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Aquafaba Easter eggs (vegan)

Beautiful homemade vegan easter eggs made from chocolate covered marzipan. With a semi-hard shell made from aquafaba, and naturally colored powdered sugar. 

Keyword aquafaba, easter, sweets, vegan

Servings 10 Easter eggs

Author Nina fra Plantepusherne

Ingredienser

• 100 gr marzipan
• 75 gr dark chocolate
• 1/4 cup aquafaba just enough to dip the eggs in. Consistency should be like that coming from a can.
• icing sugar either white or colored as described above in the blog post. You only need about a teaspoon per egg, but you need a bigger amount to be able to dip them. 1/4 cup is about minimum for dipping an egg. I had about a 1/4 or 1/2 a cup of each color available.
• 1 dash of coconut oil to thin the chocolate a little bit. About 1/4 tsp

Sådan gør du

• Divide your marzipan into 10 equally sized balls, by rolling them between the palm of your hand a smooth table top. Then support the side of your hand on the table top and continue to roll them now giving them the egg shape.
• I now recommend freezing the eggs about 15 minutes. This gives a nice thick chocolate coating and also it helps the chocolate set faster which gives a nicer shape (since the thick layer will cover up little lumps and cracks in the marzipan) and prevents it from running off.
• Melt the chocolate gently baine Marie. I simply chop the chocolate, put it in a small metal bowl and put it on top of a large tea cup filled with freshly boiled water - note that the bowl shouldn't be touching the water. Mix in the coconut oil.
• Remove the marzipan eggs from the freezer and dip them One at a time - while turning them - in the chocolate. Let the chocolate cover a tiny bit of a toothpick to better attach it. Let excess chocolate trip off and then I recommend sort of moving the egg around until the chocolate has set or it will tend to set unevenly.
• Let the (now) chocolate eggs harden and come to room temperature. If they were ice cold when dipping, some condensation water might still appear on the chocolate - let this evaporate.
• Pour aquafaba into a tiny bowl or wine glass with rounded bottom. Sift the icing sugar into separate little bowls to avoid lumps. Now take one egg dip it all the way into the aquafaba, let excess dripp off and then sort of dab it several times into the icing sugar, making sure all aquafaba is saturated with icing sugar. I filled a tablespoon with icing sugar to be able to dip and cover the parts around the toothpick. Let it set and continue with the remaining eggs. Along the way keep an eye on the eggs you have already covered with icing sugar and re-dab the eggs, when wet/darker parts are appearing on them. Eventually the whole surface will appear dry. You can tap the toothpick with a spoon this helps excess icing sugar fall off. Lastly gently squeeze or dab the egg with your fingers to firm up the coating. You can even get some of it off by blowing on them.
• Let them dry completely at room temperature. This takes at least 12 hours but if you have the time let them sit for 24. The coating should be rock hard.
• Gently remove the toothpicks by turning them while pulling them out. You can mend the hole by dipping the eggs partially into icing sugar.

Enjoy!

Indlægget Chocolate marzipan Easter eggs with Royal aquafaba coating (vegan) blev først udgivet på PlantePusherne - vegansk mad.

I will never forget the first time I tasted Vienetta. I was born in 1979 so I grew up in the 80’s when the ice cream revolution happened. There were only three different kinds of store bought card bard boxed ice cream available. In the world. To my knowledge. It was vanilla, ‘rainbow’ ice cream, and nougat. And then came the Vienetta. We were sitting in my sisters room with yellow, blue and gray dots on the walls. I don’t recall the occation, but it must have been something big for my parents to actually buy a Vienetta. Come to think of it, it might even have been some guests who brought it. Anyways, the packaging, the unwrapping, the curled ice cream, the crispy thin layers of chocolate, it was beyond this world.

Vegansk Vienetta

Danish Version of the vegan Vienetta

Go to Danish recipe

How the homemade Viennetta is made

1. Whip cream
2. Whip aquafaba with sugar
3. Mix the two
4. Layer with chocolate
5. Freeze
6. Decorate

Making the thin Vienetta-y chocolate layers

In Denmark we have a thing called pålægschokolade pronounced [ˈpʌ.lɛɡ.ɕo.ɡo.læː.ð̩]. And aparantly it translates to ‘sandwich chocolate thins’ or ‘Dark Chocolate Topping’ or similar. It is big, wafer thin flakes/plates (?) of crisp, dark (or milk) chocolate. It’s usually eaten on buns or rye bread preferably with butter under. It’s sort of our equivalent of Nutella. And they are perfect for our Vienetta recipe! I’ve used it in the Vienetta pictured in this post. And it is definetly the easiest way to get your chocolate layers. But since I’m pretty sure we are the only country that has it, I have included a couple of alternative options for you:

 Buy pålægschokolade

If you are keen on trying the palaegschokolade, the kind I use (from the brand Tom’s) is vegan. It happens to be exported to all over the world through online shops that sell Scandinavian or Danish food:

• UK: ScandiKitchen
• New Zealand: Safka – Continental goodies
• US: Nordic expat shop, Scandinavian Butik, Nordisk Import
• Australia: Danish Nordic
• Europe/Scandinavia: Scandishop, Danish Global, Coolstuff
• Arabia: Desertcart
• Denmark: Every. Supermarket. Anywhere.

Disclaimer: I have no experience with either of the above mentioned shops (nor do I make money from your purchase. I personally like to check Trustpilot beforehand to asess credibility).

Use magic shell or liquid chococlate

“But Nina, how am I ever going to be able to pour it into those perfectly flat, thin layers of chocolate?” Good news – and bad: You don’t have to! And you probably can’t Luckily, perfection is not a necessity for success in this recipe. Anything that resembles thin layers of ice cold crispy chocolate will satisfy your taste buds. So don’t panic up front – you can do this! See image below the recipe. You can simply use store bought magic shell* or melt chocolate and spread it as thinly as you can in between ice cream layers.

*magic shell is chocolate that is liquid at room temperature but solidifies when frozen.

OR

Make your own sandwich chocolate thins

This requires you to correctly temper a batch of dark chocolate and spreading it out thinly on either baking paper bakers acetate or the like with a spatula. If you don’t temper it properly it might be difficult to handle it after it hardens (if it hardens). Note that your homemade Vienetta doesn’t care how well your chocolate is tempered. The cold will make sure that the chocolate is hardened and makes a good *crunch* no matter how it got there … I couldn’t find one recipe that described exactly what we are looking for. But here’s a little inspiration: Making thin decorative shapes with tempered chocolate, and a little more more info on the temperering part with correct temperatures for different types of chocolate.

Decorating your vegan Vienetta

The most important thing of course being the folded-ice-cream-lookalike waves on each side. For the Vienetta noobs asking why this is important, please watch the video in the bottom of the blog post. If you are just gobbling down this sucker yourself you could skip it. But if you want it to radiate VIENETTAand truly impress your guests, you know you need it.

Whipped cream waves

In a narrow jar, I simply whipped 1/3C + 1tbsp (1 dl) whipping cream very stiff almost to the point of being lumpy. Then I sprayed it on with a petal nozzle (∼1cm or 1/3 inch wide) (see image below), wide side facing the ice cream. It was my first attempt, and it went very quickly, since I didn’t know if it would melt. So don’t be discouraged if you think it looks hard. Look closer, it is nowhere near perfect! You pipe it on just before serving. If you freeze it after decorating, it will taste somewhat crystallized. Neither a catastrophe nor a pleasure to eat. So if you don’t have the option to decorate right before serving, this as an option.

Top decoration

Besides the whipped cream I decorated my Vienetta with what you see here:

• A sugary chocolate powder mix that I sifted on top
• Chocolate flakes made by scraping a chocolate bar with a potato peeler
• Frozen berries
• Whatever edible (or at least non-poisonous) flowers you have acces to.

What sugar to use in the Viennetta recipe

I prefer to grind my light brown cane sugar and a coffee grinder and that way making my own icing /powdered sugar. I tried making the ice cream with regular granulated sugar (which is white, small but not pulverized crystals that are bigger than caster sugar crystals). The problem with using this size of sugar grains is that you have to whip the aquafaba a very long time for the sugar to dissolve. This results in a very fluffy almost stiff meringue that makes for a very light and not very dense ice cream. So I recommend powdered sugar. Caster sugar might very well work, but we don’t have it readily available in Denmark, so I haven’t tried it myself. If you try it, pay attention to the consistency of the meringue and please let me know in the comments how it went To learn the differences in the sugars I’m talking about, go to THIS elaborate, illustrated sugar explaining post.

The aquafaba

I used aquafaba from chickpeas in the recipe and there is not a hint of beans left in the final Vienetta. If you are afraid to have a beany taste, you can always go for a lighter bean such as lima, butter bean, white beans etc.. They generally taste less beany. If you have a fairly gooey aquafaba there is no need to reduce it. As mentioned earlier you don’t want the meringue to become too stiff or fluffy. So don’t worry about needing perfect, thick aquafaba. The consistency you get from canned beans is perfectly fine. If making your own, you might want to reduce it if it’s very watery.

The Vienetta loaf pan – size and lining

For reference my loaf pan (used in the pictures) meassures 2.75″ x 8.75″ (7 x 22cm) in the bottom and 4″ x 9.75″ (10 x 25cm) at the top. The height is 3.15″ (8cm). It is a silicone mold so if you are on a desserted island and can’t get wax paper, you could get away with not lining it. But the paper definetly gives your final Viennetta ice cream a prettier surface. And you are guaranteed that bits of ice cream wont break off when you remove it from the pan. If not using a silicone pan, you definetly need the wax paper. I used one piece of paper going across the sides and over the bottom. And two small seperate pieces that are just covering the ends. The paper is neatly folded, to better stay in place so it dosn’t move around too much when adding the ice cream mass.

3 – 2- 1 – go vegan Vienetta!

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Homemade vegan Vienetta ice cream cake recipe

Simple no-churn ice cream cake with thin crispy chocolate layers. So easy and oh so deliciuos!

I use Alpro Airy Creamy. Other vegetable whipping creams may or may not yield a slightly crystalized ice cream due to a lower fat content in the cream. Following the recipe there should be absolutely no crystals in your Vienetta.

Keyword dairy free, egg free, vegan

Servings 1 Loaf pan of nostalgic flashback

Author Nina fra Plantepusherne

Equipment

• One 6 cup loaf pan (or 1.5 Litres)

Ingredienser

• 1 cup (250 ml) whipping cream250 I use Alpro Airy & Creamy
• 150 gr icing/confectioners sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla sugar or extract
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbs of aquafaba

The chocolate layers, either

A) Buy chocolate thins

• 1 pack pålægschokolade see buying options above

B) Make your own

• Make a batch of homemade chocolate thins follow tips in the blog post

C) Make magic shell (or buy it)

• 3/4 cup (120 gr) dark chocolate chopped or chips about 4 oz
• 2 tbsp neutral coconut oil

Sådan gør du

Start by getting all the small details ready so that you pretty quickly can throw the ingredients together and get it in the freezer:

• Line your loaf pan with baking paper and make sure there's room in the freezer.

  Measure your aquafaba.

  Measure or/and make your sugar, sift it if its very lumpy.

  Melt your chocolate if using liquid: Chop dark chocolate rather fine and melt it Baine Marie (aka water bath). Mix in the coconut oil. Store it just above room temperature so it doesn't solidify until you need it in the recipe.

  … or have your bought palaegschokolade or chocolate thins ready-made.

  Make sure your whipping cream is chilled and pour it in a large bowl (narrow is better than very wide). And get your beaters out. Now you are ready:

The ice cream

• If you are using vanilla extract you can add it to your aquafaba and whip them together. (If using vanilla sugar (powder) you need to add it to your whipping cream instead). Whip your aquafaba. When the aquafaba is stiff – not wobbling around when you gently shake the bowl – it is ready for some sugar.

  Start adding the sugar 1 tablespoon at a time while whipping untill all sugar is dissolved. The final meringue mass should be glossy, fluffy and thick but still pour-able. You don't want it as stiff as for meringues. (See GIF above for reference).

  Now quickly wipe your beaters clean and whip the whipping cream (with vanilla powder if not using vanilla extract in step 1).

  Now stir the whipped cream with your spatula once to loosen it and pour the meringue on top. Fold them together using your spatula: Cut down the middle and fold it over. Twist your bowl and repeat until it looks like a uniform mass. We want them mixed but we also don't want to get rid of all the fluffiness.

– If using homemade chocolate thins or pålaegschocolate

• Scoop some of the ice cream mass into your loaf pan. It should be about 1 inch in heigtht. Even it out a bit and aim for it to be somewhere between 1/2 or 1 inch in height before adding a single layer chocolate thins. Press the chocoate down gently. Scoop over the next layer of ice cream making sure you get ice cream into all the corners and edges.

– If using liquid chocolate.

• Scoop some ice cream mass into your loaf pan, about 1 inch in heigtht. Even it out so it forms a pretty flat surface and make sure the edges go up just a little bit so the chocolate won't pour down the sides. Now take 2 tablespoons of chocolate and distribute it quickly over the ice cream. Remember, it doesn't need to be perfect just even it out a bit.

  Drop 2-3 scoops of ice cream on top of the liquid chocolate layer and gently even it out to make another flat layer without stirring too much into it as you might mess up the chocolate layer underneath.

Continue layering

• Continue with the rest of the ice cream and chocolate layer by layer. Make sure your last layer is ice cream. Hopefully you will have just a tiny bit excess ice cream so that you can scrape off the bottom to even it out perfectly.

Freeze

• Put the loaf pan in the freezer and let it sit for preferably 24 hours at which point it should be firm enough.

Decorate

• It's pretty light in texture, so it will melt quicker than ordinary ice cream. Therefore: Leave it in the freezer until you have all of you decoration stuf ready. Take it out just before serving to decorate (see tips regarding decorations further up in the blog post).

  Turn the loaf pan upside down on your serving tray and gently remove the pan. Gently remove the wax paper and there's your Vienetta!

  Decorate as suggested.

  Serve and rejoice!

Here’s the recipe made using liquid chocolate. It was my first attempt and I didn’t cover the edges (at all) as described in the recipe. So a big part of the chocolate went straight to the bottom and settled there as you can see (I know, booh hooh, a big fat chunk of chocolate that you just HAVE to eat …). But the mouth feel of the other thin layers was very Vienetta-y!

“Ehrm … what IS Vienetta?”

For those of you who don’t know what Vienetta is: Here’s a video showing how Vienetta is produced. Bare in mind, if you already know Vienetta, watching this it is a bit like finding out (spoiler alert) that Santa doesn’t exist. I don’t know how I imagined it being made, but certainly not like this:

Indlægget Homemade vegan Vienetta – no-churn ice cream cake with thin crispy chocolate layers blev først udgivet på PlantePusherne - vegansk mad.

Danish version 

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Vegan Prawn Crackers

Theese can either be oil fried or made in a microwave for a less oily version. I haven't had the chance to test the latter. There'll definetly be a difference in taste and the original prawn cracker is ususally oil fried.

Author Nina fra Plantepusherne

Ingredienser

• Rice paper
• Oil if frying preferable coconut oil or use a microwave.
• Salt

Optional

• Nutritional yeast and nori powder or kelp.

Sådan gør du

• Cut the rice paper in smaller pieces or fry them whole if they fit your skillet to make giant prawn crackers.

If deep frying:

• Heat the oil until very hot. Test with a small piece of rice paper. It will fry up immediately if the oil is hot enough. If it remains transparent and glass like the oil is too cold.
• Fry the rice paper for 10 seconds or until it's fully 'puffy'. The entire piece should be covered with oil. Add more oil as needed.
• Pick them up and leave to drip on paper towels.
• Sprinkle with fine salt and/or powderized spices.

If using a microwave

• Lightly coat the rice paper with oil and nuke a couple at a time (one layer only) at high heat untill fully puffed.
• Sprinkle with fine salt and/or powderized spices.

Noter

- The best way I've found to get spices to stick on dry things like air popped popcorn - and now vegan prawn crackers - is to grind the spices with salt in a coffee grinder and sprinkle the 'dust' (you get from the thorough grinding) on top.

- Different brands of rice paper might yield different results. You can see the kind I'm using in the short video in the blog post.

Thanks Cecilia for the inspiration

Indlægget Vegan Prawn Crackers blev først udgivet på PlantePusherne - vegansk mad.

Less meat = less heat

(Note that the leader of the Danish parti Alternativet was present at the meeting (Uffe Elbæk) and this probably explains why he wasn’t attending the event that my husband was catering for, for the same political parti a couple of days later ). 

So volunteers from over 30 countries contributed their recipes and yet another group of volunteers put it all together in this inspiring little cookbook called Meat Free Monday Everywhere.

Foreword by SIR PAUL McCartney

As many of you will know, none less than Sir Paul McCartney and his family are behind UK campaign Meatfree Mondays. He has written the foreword for the cookbook and was engaging in COP21 in other ways as well. He wrote an open letter to the British Prime minister David Cameron and recorded this message for the COP21 delegates to direct their attention to the matter:

The main criteria for the recipes in the cookbook, besides of course being vegan or vegetarian, is that it is representative of the country in question. So I offered one of my most popular recipes called frækkedeller for the project. The recipe took weeks to perfect and is a vegan equivalent to one of the most commonly known dishes in Denmark, frikadeller – known as meat balls in other parts of the world. You can read more about them in the book

So I translated the recipe and did a whole new photo shoot (3 times! Since I managed to screw up the camera settings the first two times…)

3rd time’s a charm and this ws the photo they chose for the book, I’m very proud of it. The flowers are the edible Borago Officinalis.
The cookbook and the climate relateded benefits of a lowered meat consumption were presented at COP21 back in december and now finally, the book is ready for distribution. Well if it ain’t…? Yes, those are my frækkedeller on the cover (said the proud frækkedelle-mom). Just a quick note, unfortunatly not all recipes are vegan, since some of them are vegetarian. But except for maybe Luxenburg I bet you can easily veganize all of them! If you are curious as to what on earth (pun) people are eating all over the world, click the link below and download the free e-book as a PDF. Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD THE COOKBOOK FOR FREE HERE

Indlægget Free e-cookbook from Meat free Mondays blev først udgivet på PlantePusherne - vegansk mad.

When I recently created a brand new method of making almond milk cream cheese and posted it on Facebook, I was told I just HAD to try it with carrot lox. Thanks, Rebecca, this is what came out of my experiments

Danish version

Totally unaware of my blog-doings, my husband came home with bagels the next day. You might be thinking “ehm, yeah…?” Well we’ve been together for 8.5 years and he’s NEVER brought home bagels before, it’s just not that common in Denmark. Heck, I don’t think I’ve ever bought a bagel in a supermarket my entire life. So apparently there was no way around it, and my first experiment was a full blown cream cheese bagel with carrot lox and all the trimmings. Huge success!

These Carrot Lox Canapes are rolled up with my super smooth almond milk cream cheese,, carrots and avocado. I swear I meant to serve them for my husband after the photo shoot, but they disappeared on my way to serving them to him. (In my defense, he was WAY over in the room next door.)

How to cure Vegan Carrot Lox

… and baked completely covered in salt. 

If you own a mandolin slicer, use that for cutting the slices. The first and last slice are perfect for nigiri sushi since they are rounded (see top blog post picture). Cut these about 5 mm and the rest even thinner before adding them to the marinade. You could eat them after a few hours marinating, but the acids will soften the carrots over the next few days, creating a unique tenderness that’s really worth the wait. And hey, foods that can be prepared days in advance for a big event? My favorite kind!

I have to add a small note for clarification: Lox is actually a non-smoked version of cured salmon, in the Nordic countries known as Gravad Laks. So when adding smoked paprika to your carrot lox, you are actually mimicking cold smoked salmon which in appearance looks the same as lox but differs flavorwise. And, with that out of the way, I give you my version of the Carrot Lox:

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Vegan Carrot Lox - salt cured and omega 3 marinated

Note that the carrot lox should be prepared a couple of days in advance to achieve the best taste and consistency. The small amount of marinade might confuse you, but it's only supposed to lightly cover all surfaces, not drench the carrots. Otherwise they will get way to greasy.

Keyword glutenfree, nut free, soy free, vegan

Forb. tid 40 minutter minutter

Tilb. tid 1 time time 30 minutter minutter

Samlet tid 2 timer timer 10 minutter minutter

Servings 1 batch of as many slices as you can get from your carrots

Author Nina fra Plantepusherne

Ingredienser

THE LOX

• 4 carrots about 1/4" wide, all in all 300 grams or 2/3 pounds
• 1 cups salt plus some extra
• 2 nori sheets

MARINADE

• 1 tbsp cold pressed rapeseed or flaxseed linseed oil*
• 2 tsp apple cider vinegar or freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/8 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/4 tsp mirin rice vinegar - optional
• 1 sheet nori

Sådan gør du

SALT CURING

• Turn your oven to 400°F (200C°).
• Wash your carrots, leave them moist and do not peel them.
• Cut the 2 nori sheets in half and adjust them roughly to the length of your carrots. Wrap each carrot in a piece of nori and use a little water to attach the sea weed to the carrots.
• Pour a ¼" layer of salt in the smallest possible oven safe tray that will fit your carrots side by side. Arrange the wrapped carrots side by side and cover them with the rest of the salt. Pack the salt tightly around the carrots to cover them up.
• Bake them for 1.5 hours
  
  

MARINATING (note: There's only a small amount of marinade, that's how it's suppoed to be)

• Mix all ingredients except the last nori sheet.
• Unwrap the carrots one at a time, peeling one before you unwrap the next. With a very sharp knife, make a shallow cut and gently pull off the thin outer skin using the knife together with your thumb. If too much skin is coming off it might be a good idea to let them chill a bit before proceeding.
• Cut the peeled carrots into thin slices. The first and last slice can be cut a bit thicker (5mm) and used as perfect nigiri sushi (see blog post cover photo). Drop the slices into the marinade. Tear the last piece of nori into strips and gently stir it into the marinating carrots. Cover and refrigerate, at least overnight but preferably 2 days, to let the acids tenderize the carrots, offering the unique consistency that resembles cured lox.
• Use for vegan sushi, cream cheese lox bagel, in a broccoli/pasta salad, for canapes, etc..

Noter

- Although canola oil is also made from rape seed, it is a highly refined oil that has been neutralized tastewise. So it won't give you the same fishy omega 3 smell as its cold pressed counterpart.

- Adapted from Olives for Dinner

Vegan Mustard dill sauce (aka fox-sauce)

To serve fox-lox prepare a sweet mustard dill dressing like this one. For an HCLF (oil free) version, mix 1/4 C Dijon mustard, 1/4 C agave syrup, 2-3 tsps  of dried dill, 1/2 tsp of salt and freshly ground pepper. It’ll be somewhat stronger than its oil-laden counterpart, but will give you a good idea of what fox-sauce tastes like.

One of my readers asked to test the recipe before publishing and used it for making a version of another (Nordic?) classic: Spinach roulade, with almond milk cream cheese and lox. The report says they were a great success, even with the omnivorous.

Indlægget Vegan Carrot Lox – salt cured and omega 3 marinated blev først udgivet på PlantePusherne - vegansk mad.

It’s actually pretty easy to make your own vegan cream cheese from plant milk. I discovered that a while ago when attempting to make my own tofu (aka ‘Going vegan step 2’).The recipe that came from that, and that you (and every other vegan out there) NEED to learn was first and foremost this one from soy milk and now this one from almond milk. In the pictures of this post I’ve used the almond version. There are of course unlimited ways to flavour this so this is merely for you to get started on making your own vegan cream cheese. Most people associate almond cheeses with blended almonds. This is nothing like that. Even if you have high speed blender, there will always be grittyness in blended almonds. But not in this there wont! And the good part? You don’t even need a high speed blender. What you are looking at are the soft curds of curdled almond (or soy) milk that have been blended up with a regular immersion blender and thereby reach silky smooth consistency.

The difference between the almond milk based and the soy milk based is primarily the fat content. This is of course higher in the almonds. This means that the soy milk sour cream and cream cheese will taste more astringent. That’s the only beef I’ve had with my soy milk sour cream which has been one of the most popular posts on my blog ever since I posted it. And thats why I was over the moon when following that excact procedure, only now with almond milk.

The natural higher fat content gives it an unbelievably smooth texture without the astringence. Oh by the way one of the cheeses in the pictures is loaded with fresh herbs – highly recommended!

If possible, press the stuff really hard at the end. This is doable if you get a good separation of curds and whey. You start by lettting it dripp on it’s own. Then gently scrape the bottom a few times allowing for easier passage of the whey. Finally you tighten the cloth around it, place it between two flat objects or a tofu press  – with bootom drain! If using a tofuXpress model turn it upside down to allow the whey to run off.

This batch has been pressed over night and will make a very firm cream cheese. Looks messy now, but a meeting with the immersion blender will fix that.

If you do have a tofu press, go ahead and use that for an extra firm cream cheese. Just make sure the whey can run off. For models like the tofuXpress, this means turning it upside down while it sits.

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Basic almond milk cream cheese

Here’s how you turn the revolutionary plant milk based sour cream into yummy vegan cream cheese.

Servings 1.75 dl or 3/4 cup (175 grams)

Author Nina fra Plantepusherne

Ingredienser

• 1 batch 1,75 dl (3/4 cup) of extra firmly pressed almond milk sour cream (my recipe) or use the soy milk sour cream recipe and adjust for taste.

FOR BASIC MILD CREAM CHEESE

• 1/3 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp dijon mustard
• Fresh ground black pepper
• 1-2 pinches garlic powder or a little minced garlic but be aware it can be very pungent when fresh
• 1 pinch of sugar
• 1-2 tsp nutritional yeast optional

Sådan gør du

Make the almond milk sour cream

• Okay, so first follow the recipe for my almond milk sour cream and if possible, make the batch used for cream cheese a bit firmer by pressing even more whey from the sour cream.

Flavour the sour cream cheesy

• And then stir in your spices. Note that every time you blend the sour cream/cream cheese it becomes a littel looser in consistency (it will firm up again when chilled). So if it’s already refrigerated simply stir in the spices with a spoon untill salt and sugar is dissolved. If you JUST made the sour cream you can blend in the spices when smoothing the sour cream with the immersion blender.
• Let it rest for a couple of hours or preferably overnight for the flavors to blend, almost melting in nicely. I rarely cry over a recipe but to be honest, tasting this after a night in the fridge (the cream cheese, not me) I almost shed a tear.

When you master the basic cream cheese to your liking, look at the ingredient list of your (former?) favorite cream cheese and go home and try to replicate. How about adding (not all at once tho):

Now go ahead and also try my soy milk based cream cheese. The only difference is that you use 1 cup of my soy milk sour cream instead of the almond based one. In some areas t might be easier to come across soy milk without additives which is prefered when making tha sour cream. My personal favorite? Fresh or dried dill! I can NOT get enough of that. Original (Danish) soy milk sour cream cream cheese here (translation coming up).

And if you wanna take it to the next level – “what’s that” you say? Well if it aint vegan soy milk feta cheese. Creamy, tangy, salty – go ahead and try for yourself.

Indlægget Almond milk cream cheese (dairy free, vegan, oil free, soy free, GF) blev først udgivet på PlantePusherne - vegansk mad.

“Turn your enemy’s weakness into your strength”

Or as in this case “turn the curds in your coffee into a yummy vegan sour cream”. This is done by encouraging as much curdling as possible and then turn those lovely little curds into the creamiest yummy almond milk sour cream you could ever dream of. No need for emulsifiers, gums, stabilizers or even a fancy high speed blender. Simply plain freshly squeezed lemon juice and some old knowledge about (soy) milk curdling. And then you end up with this:

I’ve been making sour cream from soy milk this way for a couple of years and being reminded how almond milk also curdles prompted to finally tick that experiment of my never ending to-cook list. I have to say I am utterly impresssed at how well it works! The consistancy of the final almond milk sour cream is just smoother than smooth. Because of the higher fat content (compared to the soy milk version) it doesn’t have tat slightly astringnet taste that the soy milk sour cream has. It is slightly sweet and might be better for using in sweet dishes, but I’ll let you decide that for yourself.

HOMEMADE OR STORE BOUGHT ALMOND MILK?

If you can get your hands on (preferably unsweetened) almond milk that curdles easily, use this. This will normally mean no gums, stabilizers, emulsifiers on the ingredient list. To test if your milk will curdle, try it with a smaller batch with just a few tablespoons of the milk mixed with lemon juice. You should immediatly see some degree of separation of whey and curds, that gets even moore clear after a couple of minutes. If you can’t get a storebought almond milk that’ll curdle, don’t worry, I have little tip for you…

THERE’S NO NEED TO SOAK THE ALMONDS

If only almonds were smaller right? Then you wouldn’t have to soak them for so long to get the most amount of milk from them. Well besides the digestion related and enzyme releasing benefits of an over night soak, you can actually do without. I tested and got the exact same amount of milk wether I soaked overnight or did as following: Pour the dry almonds in your blender. Cover them with just under half of the water from the recipe and blend for a couple of minutes. Using less water at this stage makes it easier for the blades to reach the almonds and crush them. There you go, tiny pieces of almonds that only require I minimum of soaking. Wait  about 30 minutes and unless you have a high speed blender, blend again for another couple of minutes. Now blend or mix in the rest of the water. Strain the milk through a nut milk bag or thin kitchen towel. I’m wondering if that enzyme process will maybe take place in the almond milk anyway if you let it sit for 12 hours prior to consuming? Now you have the beautiful white almond milk. One step closer to the dreamy, creamy, silky smooth almond milk sour cream …

TO BLANCH OR NOT TO BLANCH?

There’s no doubt that removing the skins from the almonds will give your final sour cream a more delicate taste. The skins do impart a slightly bitterish taste. But to be honest I skipped this part in my first experiment and was still very happy with the result. As you can see in the pictures it’s still very smooth and very white so I’m pretty sure it’s just a matter of taste. In other words you won’t be punnished for not doing it, but you will definetly be rawarded if you do!

Here’s a visual walk through of the process from the curdled almond milk untill it’s ready to be blended. Note that straining away the almond whey (the clear liquid) is NOTHING like in the previous step where you strain the pulp from the milk. You have to be VERY gentle when handling this mess or the curds and the whey will reunite and you’ll have a hard time draining away the whey. Just pretend that it’s asleep and you gotta do what you gotta do but without waking it.

Here’s how I like to do it by using a bowl that fits into your colander/strainer and you can sort of just tip it away from underneath the curdled milk:

Read more about how I accidentally developed this recipe by reading the blogpost leading up to this one: Soy milk sour cream. And make that one if you perfer a soy milk base.

NOTE: THIS IS AN ORIGINAL RECIPE OF MINE AND IF YOU WISH TO BLOG ABOUT MY ALMOND MILK SOUR CREAM, PLEASE RESPECT MY WORK AND LINK TO THIS POST INSTREAD OF SIMPLY PUBLISING IT ON YOUR OWN BLOG. THANKS <3

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Almond milk sour cream (vegan)

Silky smooth vegan almond milk sour cream from simple ingredients.

Store bougt almond milk: In the olden days a good quality almond milk could be used instead. But nowadays most of them contain so little almonds that it's simply not posible. If you want to try, go for the almond milk with the highest amount of fat and protein but no emulsifiers (they hinder the curdling from happening)

Keyword dairy free, lactose free, vegan

Servings 7.5 dl (3 cups) of almond milk that turns into 2,5 dl (1 cup) of almond sour cream

Author Nina fra Plantepusherne

Ingredienser

• 150 gr just under 1 cup almonds (blanched or not)
• 8,5 dl or 3,5 cups of water for soaked almonds. For unsoaked almonds use 9 dl (3,75 cups)
• Pinch of salt
• 0,75 dl (1/4 cup + 1 tbsp) freshly squeezed lemon juice

YOU'LL ALSO NEED

• A colander and either a thin cloth or kitchen towel - or simply a not too narrow nut milk bag.

Sådan gør du

MAKING THE MILK

Using soaked almonds - do NOT discard the soaking water!

• Cover your almonds with water yesterday and today drain the soaking water into a meassuring jug. Add water so you have 8,5 dl (3,5 cups) of water all in all.
• Now blend the soaked almonds witth just under half of the water for a couple of minutes, add the rest of the water and blend it again shortly.
• Pour the blended milk into a cloth lined colander placed on top of a bowl or a nut milk bag to strain the milk. You should get 7,5 dl (3 cups) of milk.

Using unsoaked almonds

• Place your dry almonds in the blender and add just under half of the water. Blend for several minutes. Let it sit for 30-60 minutes. This should soak the tiny almond grids.
• Blend again for a couple of minutes and then add the rest of the water. Now blend it up shortly.
• Pour the blended milk into a cloth lined colander placed on top of a bowl or a nut milk bag to strain the milk. You should get 7,5 dl (3 cups) of milk.

TURNING ALMOND MILK INTO SOUR CREAM

• If taking milk from a bigger batch, remember to shake before you meassure it it so you don't risk working with just the thin, watery part.

Curdle the milk

• Heat the almond milk untill very hot but NOT boiling. If it starts to boil you need to cool it since the heat will destroy the lemoon juice enzymes and make curdling less efficient (see Tips section). It should definetly be too hot to touch.
• Pour the lemon juice in a bowl and mix in the salt. Pour the hot almond milk in while trying to distribute it evenly.
• It should start to curdle almost instantly. GENTLY stir it with a spoon to distribute the lemon juice and allow for a more even curdling. EDIT: Now gently put the bowl in the refrigerator until chilled. This is what it will end up looking like:
  

Separate the curds from the 'whey'

• Now we want to separate the whey from the curds that will become our sour cream. This is NOT to be handled roughly like when straining the pulp from the milk: In slow motion pour the curdled almond mass into a cloth lined colander or nut milk bag. (Handling it gently and slowly helps it stay curdled and allows for easier separation of the whey).
• Hang it up to drip for a while and finally squeeze the remainder of the whey out. I like to let it drip into some sort of measuring equipment and when the whey reaches about the 5 dl (2 cups) mark, you can unwrap the curds.

Blend to make it smooth

• It looks very messy at this stage, but nothing that a god 1-2 minutes with an immersion blender or a very small food processor won't fix. Blend untill completely smooth, adjust the taste with tiny amounts of sugar and salt to your liking - and enjoy!
• or press it even harder and proceed to making an amazing almond milk cream cheese.

Noter

- Trouble shooting/first aid: If you followed the recipe without any substitutions or alterations and you feel like your milk did't curdle at all within 10 minutes, don't be discouraged. Proceed with gently pouring it into a cloth lined colander or press and let it drip for 1 hour. It might very well still separat, just not as easily as with good, clear curds. Proceed with blending it as described.

- If you don't trust the blending ability of your blender and own a coffee grinder, use this to turn the almonds into almond meal. And make your almond milk from this. Note that you'll need 150 grams or 1,5 cups of almond meal.

- In my experience the almond curds are more fragile than soy curds. For this reason I don't recommend doubling or trippleing the recipe. The bigger the batch you have to handle the more you'lll unintentionally mash it up and reunite the whey and the curds, This makes it very difficult to strain awway the whey.

- Lemon juice substitutes: The curdling will also take place if you use a vinegar. But this will NOT taste very good if eaten straight. But if the sour cream is used in baking or cooked in savory dishes it might be palatable. I recommend an apple cider vinegar.

- What to do with the leftover pulp from making almond milk?
Throw it in a bread or cookie dough. It won't last long in the fridge, so freeze or dehydrate it for prolonged shelf life. Get more creative inpiration from Pinterest or Google.

And of course you can spice it up and use it for the smoothest oil free cream cheese you ever had – almond milk cream cheese. I let it sit with the spices overnight. I could swear it melted in my mouth …

Gurl, look at that body…

Indlægget Almond milk sour cream (vegan) blev først udgivet på PlantePusherne - vegansk mad.

I wanted to make a simple little Braided Christmas Heart (danish tradition, normally made with colored paper) of beetroot and carrot. It was not particularly difficult but the beetroot colored everything red so you couldn’t see the details (left in picture). It worked better to cut out the squares separately (‘braided’ heart to the right in this picture) .

The parcels are made by first cutting a square and the cutting it twice to get 4 small squares. They were put in the moulds and then I cut the ribbon from a boiled carrot slice using a knife. The silicone molds are so smooth that you can easily move things around, take them up and cut until they fit. The spruce branch branch is made ​​of a spinach leaf where I first cut away one half of the leaf and finally cut ‘fringes’ in the second half and twisted it so spruce needles were spread out a little. Especially beetroot leaks insanely amounts of color so I put the slices on some kitchen paper before cutting. Otherwise the color will float and color the surroundings. For the same reason, it may be an idea to start freezing beetroot cutouts lyimg in the mold before you put down the rest of the cutout – like you see I did with the braided heart in the image below.

To get the cutouts lying completely flat in the silicone mold I dabbed a tiny bit of agave syrup on the side facing down. The outline of the ginger bread figures are made by taking the fat part from a can of coconut milk and stir until it is free of lumps. I put it in a small funnel made ​​of a piece of wax paper (not parchment paper ). I recommend practicing a bit before you start drawing in the molds. And remember that words need to be spelled backwards I stuck to Merry Christmas which luckily is only 6 letters (God Jul) in Danish.

Pop them in the freezer so the coconut cream wont be pushed around when you pour the ice cream.

When adding the ice cream, it is important to make sure that the ice cream is up to close around the shapes to avoid air pockets in the finished popsicles. I poured just a little to begin with and distributed it closely around the coconut cream figures with a toothpick or wooden skewer. If your ice cream is very liquidy when you pour it you don’t need to be so carefull at this point (but on the other hand crystals will form in the popsicles).

I usually pack the finished popsicles into small pieces of ‘lunchbox paper’. Wax paper will do as well.

Of course the last popsicle (number 24) needed to stand out. I made it heart-shaped, filled the middle with dark melted chocolate and cut out the number 24 from cooked beetrot. When frozen, I drizzled it with even more melted chocolate. There was so much chocolate in that you can hardly see the rest of it, but hey, it’s chocolate, right?

Throw all the popsicles in a basket or box. You might want to split it into two batches so you don’t need to pull all of them out every day. Because everytime you pull them out into room temperature a tiny layer of ice will form on top of them.

Tips
– I’m using these moulds but any lying down type moulds should do.

-Your DIY advent calendar with banana popsicles can be made well in advance. And actually you don’t have to have ALL of the popsicles ready for the first day of the countdown. The rest can be made along the way.

Good luck and happy holidays – or whatever you are celebrating and need to count down for

 (This blog post contains affiliate links, I earn a small commission for your purchase, but it’s not costing you a dime extra. Thanks for your support and please don’t buy anything you won’t be using )

Indlægget DIY edible advent calender (vegan) blev først udgivet på PlantePusherne - vegansk mad.