Vegan Cheese: An Evolution in Cheesemaking?
Vegan cheese. These two words together are causing a bit of a ruckus, in more than one way. Terminologically, the linking of these two words together incite a range of reactions from bemusement to anger from skeptics and the dairy faithful.
“It can’t be cheese if there is no dairy in it!!” “Make other sounds with your mouth!” “Call it something else!” are a small range of outraged feedback that have come my way, and I am more than certain, in the direction of others working in the realm of vegan cheesemaking. However, while the outraged mock, question, doubt, and hurl vitriol, a large and increasing number of folks are open to the idea. The proof is in the numbers.
Veg News cites Bharat Book Bureau as forecasting global sales of vegan cheese equivocating to $3.906 billion by 2024. This rapid surge is both disruptive of the dairy market, and evidenced by the seemingly sudden proliferation of vegan cheese or cheese-like products on the market. Aside from the big players like Kite Hill, Miyoko’s Creamery, Field Roast Chao Slices, and Earth Island, there are a plethora of smaller (and growing) companies popping up in countries all over the world.
Vtopia (US), Bloedkuhla (US, artisan), Cheezehound (US, artisan), Parmela (US, cheese analogs), Violife (Greece, cheese analogs), Sheese (UK), New Roots (Switzerland, artisan), Artisa Tasmania (Aus, artisan), Nuts for Cheese (Canada, artisan), and of course, my own young company, Blue Heron (Canada). These represent just a small number of the companies currently in existence and a closer look at these companies suggests that there is also a wide range in type of product.
In a 2013 Food & Wine article, about Kite Hill (a vegan cheese company based in California with cheeses made largely from Californian almonds) founder Tal Ronnen, states that this burgeoning realm of culinary experimentation and exploration as both an example of a Californian ethos (fusing vegan, environmental and flavourful food pursuit) and a desire of science-curious chefs seeking new frontiers. Situating the California influence further, presaging Kite Hill, Miyoko Schinner, vegan chef, activist, author, launched her book, Artisan Vegan Cheese (probably the first vegan cheesemaking book, and she has her own line of vegan cheeses, Miyoko’s Creamery).
Arguably this book also launched a generation of earnest, curious and eager vegan, plant-based experimenters, seeking to create something that might meet that near magical hold that dairy cheese has held on the palette for oh so long. The birth of vegan cheese or cheese-like products is a uniquely urban pursuit, as opposed to the hundreds of years old practice of dairy cheese making, and as such is very much linked to modern day consumer trends and demands linked to ethical concerns as much as convenience and curiosity, whereas the early foundation of dairy cheese making was born from necessity and accident, a way to preserve a food stuff in the absence of modern food preservation methods such as refrigeration.
Coinciding with this rapid growth, shifting ethical concerns of consumers (personal health, environmental, and animal welfare), and culinary exploration, is the lack of a coherent, ubiquitous set of standards for understanding just what constitutes vegan cheese. With some products containing a variety of ingredients, including plant proteins, starches, gums and emulsifiers, to those using minimal ingredients and focused on microbial culturing and limited aging techniques, and yet a third range of products that are both cultured but make use of other ingredients, there are justifiable questions as to what it means to call these products cheese.
A side note, similarly in dairy cheese making, there are some cheese products which are actually considered modified milk products due to the addition of emulsifiers and other ingredients that are not normally used in traditional cheesemaking practices.
In my book, The Art of Plant-based Cheesemaking, I set out to introduce the idea of a possible, and rudimentary classification system, separating cultured (microbial usage) cheeses from cheeze (cheese analogs), those products using multiple ingredients to create familiar flavor and texture to some styles of cheese. Paying homage to some of the methods of the dairy cheesemaking craft (using microbes to create flavor and texture and various aging techniques), I set out to introduce the use of lactic-acid culturing method in developing some simple core plant-based cheeses, and compare these against a few recipes of the ‘cheeze’ variety in order to demonstrate the difference.
I choose to focus my definition as an inversion of sorts, of the definition of cheese proffered by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Codex Ailementarious. Their definition states that cheese is denoted as such by the coagulation of dairy proteins by the use of digestive enzymes and microbial cultures, followed by practices used to finish this process into a final product, cheese. Similarly, I elect to focus my method on the use of microbes and plant-derived digestive enzymes to coagulate plant-based proteins (in a plant, usually nut based matrix), and use similar post culturing techniques to age my products, including dry-salting, brining, washing, pressing, etc.
It is perhaps a long shot, but nonetheless my hope that as more vegan cheese makers become interested in the craft side of the production versus the volume production of cheeze type products designed to get to market quickly, that a new evolution of cheese making itself will be understood to be evolving, and maybe, just maybe, it will be understood as an exciting new development in the culinary world. 
Cashew/Macadamia Non-Dairy ‘Chevre’ with Cracked Peppercorn
Adapted from The Art of Plant-based Cheesemaking including process revision
This is a cultured cheese, made from applying a lactic-acid starter culture to the nut milk base. The preferred starter culture in this case is water kefir. Water kefir grain can be purchased in many health food stores, or ordered from www.culturesforhealth.com. To use the water kefir, you would need to rehydrate the dried grain, and allow the kefir grain to ferment a sugar water mixture. You would then use some of the water kefir as the probiotic rich solution to culture the nut milk base.
The water kefir solution contains lacto baccilli and yeasts which do the work of digesting fats, carbohydrates and proteins, and converting the nut milk into a thickened, acidified ‘curd’. If you are an experienced DIY dairy cheesemaker, this ‘curd’ will not look like a dairy curd, as the nut milks also contain long chain polysaacharides that pull the mixture together into a thick, lumpy (not dense or firm lumps) mixture.
Prior to starting: make sure you wash all of your equipment and working area with hot soapy water first, then follow with a sanitizing solution, such as high acid vinegar, or bleach water (chlorine off gasses within 45 minutes, so allow some time after using a bleach water solution before using equipment and work area). Be reasonably clean and tidy, and you should encounter little reason to be worried about working with these microbes.
Ingredients
Equipment
- High speed blender (or in absence of high speed blender, a combination of food processor and blender)
- Spatula
- Food grade plastic or glass bowl/bucket
- Cheesecloth or butter muslin
- Bamboo mat
- Container (ripening box) (for aging/curing cheese)
- Measuring spoons
- Measuring cups
Ingredients
- 170 grams* (1½ cups) cashews
- 224 grams (1½ cups) macadamia
- 59 ml (¼ cup) full fat coconut milk (optional)**
- 5-10 ml (1-2 teaspoons) salt
- 30 ml (2 tablespoons) water kefir
* Metric conversions by The Cook’s Cook
**If you do use full fat coconut milk, reduce the amount of water you use in blending.
Preparation
1. Soak the cashews and macadamia for 1 hour. The nuts may be soaked for as long as overnight, but keep in mind that they — particularly cashews — will absorb water,and this will need to be considered when adding water during the blending process.
2. Set aside a small pitcher with 355 ml (1½ cups) water. Drain the nuts and add to a high speed blender; add small amounts of water to the blender, and begin blending on low speed. Blend on low, pulsing periodically, to allow the water and the nut mixture to begin to emulsify (allow the fats and water to fuse). Continue adding small amounts of water (or coconut milk if that is what you are using) to the mixture, and blend until the mixture is quite smooth. Gradually increase the speed as the mixture thickens.
3. Once the mixture is thick and smooth, with no granularity, use the spatula to scrape the mixture into a clean (washed and sanitized) food grade plastic or glass bowl or bucket.
4. Add the water kefir (the water part, not the grains) to the mixture. Gently stir the lactic acid starter into the mixture. Make sure your container is large enough to allow for 5-8 cm (2-3 inches) of head space above the surface of the mixture for expansion and off gassing as the mixture ferments. Cover the top of the container and place in an evenly warm environment in your kitchen. If you have a dehydrator, place inside the dehydrator on lowest setting, OR place inside your oven with just the oven light on, OR if you happen to have a yogurt maker, place the mixture directly into the yogurt maker container and place on low setting. The water kefir microbes are active at room temperatures and up to about 38°C (100°F), so no need to apply high levels of heat.
5. Allow the mixture to culture for up to 36 hours, checking it every 12 hours. Taste and smell the mixture to see how acidity is forming. Culturing the mixture with microbes is done in order to create the necessary acidity. The acidity forms by the microbes digesting the proteins and carbohydrates. This, then, leads to the nut milk being transformed into a thickened ‘curd.’ If the mixture is not beginning to taste a little tangy or sour after 12 hours, you may need to add a little lemon juice or apple cider vinegar to ensure that acidification is proceeding.
6. After the mixture has cultured to a taste that you like, add the salt, and mix into the curd. Place the curd into a cheesecloth or butter muslin bag to drain (a nut milk bag works well, as can a reusable produce bag).
7. Allow the mixture to drain from 2 hours to overnight. The more moisture released from the mixture the firmer your cheese will end up being. Keep in mind, this mixture will not drain free fluid as in nut milk making processes. Rather the material will absorb moisture away from the curd, and evaporate away from the surface of the material.
8. After the draining of the curd, taste and check the level of saltiness. You may want to add more but add sparingly, because as the cheese dries, the salt will concentrate in the cheese. Lay out a multiple layer cheese cloth piece (about 30 x 30 cm/12 x 12 inches) and sprinkle some cracked black peppercorn (or dried herbs), and spoon the curd in a line along the peppercorn (or herbs). Sprinkle more peppercorn (or herbs) on the top surface of the curd, then using the cheesecloth, gently form the curd into a log shape, then wrap the ends of the cloth over each end of the cheese, and roll cheese in the cheese cloth to form a log.
9. Place the cheesecloth bound log onto a bamboo mat (these are ideal for home based cheesemaking, they absorb moisture away from the cheese, and have some anti-microbial properties, which means they discourage the growth of unwelcome microbes). Place the cheese on the mat inside a container large enough to allow air flow around the cheese, and set inside the fridge. Every day, check the amount of excess moisture on the bottom of the container, and wipe clean, and if the bamboo mat is very wet, replace with a dry one.
10. Turn the log on the bamboo mat 1 to 2 times per day, and after about day 3, check firmness of the cheese and gently unwrap from the cheese cloth. You should have a soft, but gently firm cheese ready to eat. Keep cheese in cheesecloth or cheese paper and stored in the cheese drawer of your refrigerator, or in a container with enough air room. Because the cheese contains live cultures, condensation will occur, so the container you store it in, will need to be wiped dry periodically.
Karen McAthy
Chef Karen McAthy’s focus is plant-based, vegan cuisine and methods with an emphasis on fermentation and culturing. Karen was born and raised in Alert Bay, a small, island based community along the west coast of British Columbia, Canada. Karen’s work in vegan restaurants, (namely Graze Vegetarian, closed 2015), led to her research for developing cultured plant-based cheeses. Turning to dairy cheesemaking methodology for reference, Karen evolved several cheeses at Graze, and went on to write The Art of Plant-based Cheesemaking. Her book won the Canadian section (vegan/vegetarian cookbooks) of the Gourmand World Cookbook awards, and is shortlisted for the international title, with awards being announced in May 2018. She founded Blue Heron, a new vegan cheese shop opening in Vancouver, February 2018.
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