[Sca-cooks] Almond Milk Cheese Redux

wheezul at canby.com wheezul at canby.com
Thu Apr 15 05:46:42 PDT 2010


 ======
> Not really responding to this post, but I deleted the more relevant
> ones...
>
> I have been following this thread with some interest, because I have
> always
> wondered if those almond milk cheeses would work out (I am similarly
> curious
> about the 'custard' cheeses you see in some period recipes). I can't help
> but wonder if the result is basically a thick almond paste, or if it
> really
> is coagulated proteins coming out of the fat/oil that the almonds give off
> during the process of grinding etc.
> I'm also curious as to why rennet would have this effect - it is an enzyme
> (or collection of enzymes) designed to digest animal milk, which is a
> different set of proteins to almonds. I wonder if the coagulation is just
> happening from the acidic ingredients, but the period writer thought that
> if
> you wanted to make cheese you should put rennet in, so they put it in, but
> it's not really doing anything?
>
> Angharad
> (who has just enough chemistry to be confused)

And interestingly in this recipe the instructions give you several
different options for souring as if a curdling step was necessary.  I have
no idea if I added enough rennet or not, but certainly I did get a creamy
consistency mass of almonds that worked well as a 'cheese' and didn't
really have an almond paste/marzipan texture.  It was more like a cooked
farina that drained.  The resulting 'whey' was not as thick as the milk
produced when the mass was mixed together, so I think some water/fat
absorption happened, but if it was the action of the rennet at play is a
good question!

I wonder what would happen with an experiment using all the different
agents vs. a test.

Katherine B.




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