Vegusto came through!!

Well after a not so favourable review of some of the no-moo cheeses I have found the saviour!! The mild aromatic cheese is actually so good. It is definitely the closest tasting thing to cheese (well in my head anyway- I have probably forgotten the actual taste). It is actually good enough to have a bite of it on its own but I have also done a normal cheese and tomato sandwich and a toasted cheese and luncheon roll (see previous post) sandwich with garlic mayonnaise (vegan of course!) and I must say enjoyed them a lot. It's not something I can see myself eating a lot as it seems quite processed and I would prefer a more vegetable based sandwich usually but it is perfect for a change and especially perfect for a lovely lazy (I wish- dissertation time!) Sunday. Hot cross buns and fruit for breakfast and a cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch; I better have a nice healthy dinner then with plenty of vegetables!

Mild Aromatic No-Moo Cheese

Vegusto- I've heard so many things....

herb

Hi y'all,

With most of my past attempts at trying to find a vegan cheese I liked failing I decided to try one of what seemed to be the holy grails of vegan cheese- Vegusto! As I have previously mentioned I don't really miss cheese but it would be useful to have some more easy to put together sandwich fillings. I went on the website and decided to purchase the bronze starter kit containing: No-moo herb cheese, no-moo mild aromatic, no-moo melty, tomato burger, pepper sausage, smoked luncheon roll, brunch sandwich slices and paprika schnitzel. I also bought some no-moo walnut cheese because it sounded good.

Well the first thing I tried was the walnut cheese because I was so excited. I have got to say there was immediate disappointment. The cheese was very white and not full of taste. Next I opened the herb one. This was quite a bit better- especially in a sandwich. I made myself a sandwich for uni with the herb cheese and the  smoked luncheon meat and tomatoes. I have got to say it was a lovely change from my usual sandwiches like houmous and veg (although I do love this it is nice to mix it up a bit) but probably a lot less healthy!). The luncheon meat on its own was tasty- a bit like a veggie hot dog taste and sometimes reminded me of smoked salmon (although this was years ago I ate that so I am not sure it actually does). The texture was "meaty" but every so often felt a bit gritty which was not the best. In sandwiches it was much better.

Those are all that I have tried so more so watch out for further Vegusto product reviews :)

luncheon roll

Walnut

cupcakes, cupcakes, everywhere!!

Well Wednesday was a baking extravaganza! It was Ciara's birthday (a friend from my nutrition course) and we were having dinner where I work which doesn't do desserts so I decided to bake vegan cupcakes. I always get ambitious so I wanted to do three flavours: vanilla and strawberry, chocolate and coffee.


I started off with a recipe from where better than from "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World" By Isa Chandra Moskovitz and Terry Hope Romero.





GOLDEN VANILLA CUPCAKES
The ingredients:


1 cup of soya milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/4 cup of plain white flour
2 Tbsp. cornflour (although I forgot to buy this so I just added a little more flour and it was fine)
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil (there is an option of 1/2 cup margarine)
3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract


(this recipe is slightly changed to what I did)

This made around 8 big cupcakes (I used a muffin tin)

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius. Mix the cider vinegar into the soya milk and leave to stand so it curdles a bit. Mix all the wet ingredients together and then stir in all the dry ones until well mixed. Fill muffin cases about 2/3 full and put into the oven for around 20-25 minutes until the cakes are springy to touch.

1 batch of these were left classic

1 batch had cocoa powder added (around 5 tablespoons- or until a lovely dark brown chocolate colour). 

1 batch had coffee added. I put a couple of table spoons of boiling water into a cup with 3 tsp instant coffee granules in and added to the mixture when they were dissolved.

Once they had cooled down I made butter creams:

225g vegan margarine

450g icing sugar

3 tbs soya milk

1tsp vanilla essence

I just mixed these in the food processor. For the chocolate icing I added 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder. For the coffee icing I made the same mixture as for the coffee cake mix but let it cool down in the fridge before I added it.

Before icing the vanilla cupcakes I cut out the middle, added some strawberry jam and replaced the middle part again.

I would have liked to pipe all the icing but I only had one piping bag and limited time so I just piped the chocolate icing.

To top the cakes I added a vegan chocolate button to the chocolate ones, a dark chocolate covered coffee bean to the coffee cakes and half a strawberry to the vanilla cakes.

I have to say these went down an absolute treat and everyone had different favourites. The surprise of the jam in the vanilla ones was a particular hit!