I found this recipe while cruising cooking blogs (yes, I am officially now that boring). It is supposed to make an American hard cheese… sort of like the processed cheese used to make cheese sticks (for those who went to primary school in the 70s and 80s). The original recipe called for almond milk, and since I didn’t have any almonds soaked to make the milk… I used soy milk instead. I hope that won’t affect the taste too much. The rest of this recipe is straight from the blog I found it on.

Ingredients

2 cup soy milk

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp miso paste, any color

2 tbsp nutritional yeast

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

2 1/2 tsp sugar

1 1/3 cup water

2 1/2 tbsp agar agar powder

Instructions

In a medium size sauce pan on medium heat, add in all ingredients EXCEPT for the water and the agar agar powder.

Whisk together until the miso paste has completely dissolved. Taste, and add any extra flavorings at this time if you choose.

In a separate sauce pan, add in water and agar agar powder. Turn on the heat after you add in two ingredients and stir together on medium heat until the agar agar powder has completely dissolved. This should take 2-3 minutes.

Once the agar is dissolved, pour the mixture into the blender with the milk mixture and blend for a minute or two until it is well combined.Pour the mixture into a mold and put it in the fridge to set. This part needs to be done quickly, because the agar begins to set very fast as it cools.

I decided to not take the ingredient and process photos for this post; they all look the same anyway. There seemed to be a lot of liquid in my chosen mold, but I decided to see if it would firm up in the fridge.

The final cheese took about three hours to set and cool completely. Then I upended the mold onto a lunch box lid and cut the cheese straight away. The results look like processed cheese; it has that particular rubbery look and feel that Kraft cheese sticks had (from memory). It is a bit ‘wetter’ than the real thing, and by that I mean it is sort of … umm… jelly ish. The texture is more of a really hard jelly than a squeezed and squashed emulsion. I put some slices onto crackers and the taste is OK, cheesy and pleasant, but not close to real cheese. I think it will make a good cheese for topping lasagne and toasting in sandwiches, but it is not the grail. On with the search.

I also made some vegan butter for cooking purposes, trying out a new recipe I found. I think I was a bit slow getting this butter into the mold. No problems though, I will use it all for baking anyway.