Mermaid Kitchen: Vegan Cheese Wheel

A few posts ago, I detailed a few things I wanted to get done this year. One of which being, make that weird vegan cheese thing my mum makes. It's this delicious, spreadable cheese-like, urm, thing. I have no idea where she got this recipe from, I have only ever seen hand written versions but my god do I love it! Every party buffet, it is on the table and I swear I eat about three-quarters of it. It cannot be helped, it's just too tasty.

Ever since I first tried it, I have been threatening to get the recipe and have a go at it myself. To the point where I did take the recipe a couple times, only for it to get lost in the void that is life. It may have taken years, but I have finally managed to take note of the recipe, buy the ingredients, and actually make it. I think I over cooked the first batch, which clearly means it was high time to make it again And share my mishaps here, too. It's been an age since we were last in the Mermaid Kitchen!

Ingredients

• 75g cashews
• 4 tbsp cornflour
• 3 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 3/4 tsp salt 
• 1/3 tsp garlic power
• 150ml water
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Herb de Provence
  

Method

1. Weigh and measure all of your dry ingredients into the bottle/tub/object you use on your blender.
   
2. Do the same for all the wet ingredients.
   
3. Blend until smooth.
4. Pour into a pan and cook whilst stirring continuously. Do this until it becomes a thick paste. (This might just be my hob, but it happens pretty quickly!)
5. Once thickened and pasty, decant into a ceramic bowl of some description an leave to cool for roughly an hour.
6. Liberally sprinkle some dried herbs onto a plate. The original recipe calls for herb de provence, but anything basil-y will do.
7. Once cool, remove the cheese from its container and press onto the herby plate. you can roll the edges, decorate the top edge, or cover entirely. It's up to you.
8. Et voila! Is done.
   

How Did It Go?

Having already tried the recipe before, I knew some pit-falls to avoid. The first time, I eyeballed the salt and did not put anywhere near enough in. This time I actually measured it properly. I also put a liiittle extra of the nutritional yeast in, too. It was very tasty. Another mistake I made the first time was over-cooking the cheese a touch. Having been forewarned about under-cooking, I may have over compensated. Also, our hob goes from 1 - heckin' hot incredibly quickly. Makes life difficult, sometimes.

Overall, this time it went very well. I now have four vegan cheese wheels sitting in my fridge ready for lunches and snacks. Ok, so there's only two left... Can you blame me?! I will definitely revisit this recipe, a lot.

What is do you want to make this year? Got any recipes you've been itching to try? Going to give this a go? Lemme know below!