Eagerly, we’ve been waiting for these vegan creations to be ready for a first bite. The whole process takes a few weeks of turning, checking humidity, and things like that– all credit goes to Joeri, I only asked how much longer 🙂

And then it was Thé Day!
The cheese was ‘ripe’, Joeri said proudly.

To create a full experience out of this, Joeri baked some fresh (delicious!) bread rolls, and some extras to try with it. I went for walnuts, Joeri for a beetroot salad, but I didn’t want that color in the picture as you wouldn’t notice the cheese anymore :-).

So what did we think of it?
Taste:
It’s been a long time since I had actual cheese and sometimes reel cheese can have a strong taste. These are rather gentle and one of the two that we made turned out a bit too salty. Joeri said that he might have used the wrong salt. I’m not familiar with all the ins-and-outs, but you have to use salt without iodine but not Himalaya-salt- which he used. Perhaps next time the taste will be different? But overall we were both very pleased with the result. Making mistakes, or even getting the dose right, is part of the fun and the experiment.
Texture:
The texture is smooth and soft. Hard enough to take a bit, soft enough to spread over your bread. I think that’s perfect.
I’m not into eating crusts, not of real cheese and not of vegan cheese, but according to Joeri it’s perfectly edible and he ate all of mine with great delight 🙂
Experience:
Even here in the Swedish countryside, we have several options for vegan food, but there is a certain joy in making things yourself, opening the fridge, and not just taking out a plastic container but a small wooden box with inside a vegan cheese wrapped in paper. I’m easily overwhelmed by recipes and almost never cook, but to Joeri, it’s a relaxing kind of challenge. He loves cooking, baking, measuring stuff, and turning the kitchen into one big mess :-).

At the moment, he’s making some kind of cottage cheese and now we have finished both of these cheeses, he’ll be making some more Cashewbert. We also have plans to test some recipes for drying food to pack for hikes or camping trips, and I’m very curious about that.