September 1, 2017

Probiotic Plant Based Yogurt

Have you ever wondered why there are so many ingredients in store-bought vegan yogurts? I did, and there were definitely some that I’d rather not see on the label. Why would I want starches in my yogurt, or sugar, or stuff that I can’t even pronounce? Well, here’s the easy fix – do it yourself! You can count the ingredients on one hand and create all the fruity variations that make your tummy happy and your face smile!

You will need:

a high speed blender, if you use the original version (if you don’t have one, there’s a solution!)

Ingredients (original version):

1 cup raw, unsalted cashews, soaked overnight or for a few hours
1 1/4 – 1 1/2 (300-360 ml) cups filtered water (start with less, You can add more as you go!)
One 13.66 fl oz (403 ml) can coconut milk (don’t use the light version!)
4 probiotic capsules (I use Renew Life/Ultimate Flora/50 Billion Live cultures)

Ingredients (simplified version):

2 13.66 fl oz (403 ml) cans full fat coconut milk
4 probiotic capsules (as above)

Preparation:

Drain the water you soaked the cashews in, rinse, and drain again. Put cashews and filtered water in your blender and blend on high speed until creamy and steamy (3 – 3 1/2 minutes, but it really depends on your blender). Please look at the notes on the bottom and learn from my mistake! Pour and scrape the cream into a glass-, ceramic-, or plastic bowl. Add the coconut milk, and stir well to combine. For the following use either a plastic or wooden spoon because some metals chemically react with the probiotic mixture. Open the probiotic capsules and thoroughly blend the powder with your coconut cashew cream. Cover with a clean kitchen towel or cheese cloth and secure with a rubber band. Let the mixture sit at room temperature for 1-2 days. After 24 hours, your yogurt is very mild. If you prefer it tart, just wait another day! When it’s ready, put it covered into the fridge! You will be surprised how creamy it is!

Here is the second version that doesn’t require a high speed blender. It’s also perfect when you don’t feel like messing around with a machine. The only thing you have to to is substitute the cashew cream with another can of full fat coconut milk. Everything else stays the same. It will be a little more coconutty but still creamy and delicious.

Notes:

You can enjoy it unsweetened and pure as is or in in dressings, tzatziki, sauces, baking……
It’s delicious with preserves, fruit, granola, and so much more. For the picture, I warmed up some frozen berries with maple syrup, layered them with the yogurt, and garnished with fresh blueberries and lemon balm. Yum!
Make sure probiotics come in the form of capsules. They are easy to open, the powder is ready to use.
Since we all learn from our mistakes, I’d like to share this little mishap with you. It actually happened with my sour cream, but since it’s kind of the same base, I’d rather mention it here too. After so many beautiful perfect batches of sour cream, my cashew base didn’t turn out as expected. It looked gritty, thicker than usual, even though I thought I had done it the same way as before. I first blamed it on the new bag of cashews I had just opened, but I had my doubts about that. So I decided to soak a new batch of cashews and really pay attention to what I was doing. Everything looked perfect while I blended them. They started to steam, the cream started to thicken, and then … oops, all of a sudden it happened: it went from creamy to gritty. I was able to save that batch by adding more water and blending on a lower setting. I probably had to make that mistake in order to share it with you. So keep your eyes on the blender and don’t over-process your cashews! Now I’m back to perfect batches of sour cream. Thank goodness!