Chocolate Cherry Blossom Cheese
Fermented Cheese Ingredients:
2 cups raw organic cashews (soak overnight in filtered water)
1 cup filtered water
1 tsp. acidophilus probiotic 4
Directions:
Rinse and drain the cashews until the water runs clear. Place them in a Vitamix with the filtered water. Blend them until creamy smooth. Test the mixture with your fingers and make sure there is no grittiness in the cheese. Add the acidophilus and blend until evenly distributed. Take a stainless steel bowl, a strainer, and some cheesecloth. Fold the cheesecloth in half and lay it in the strainer. Rest the strainer over the stainless bowl so that the excess water will drip into the bowl. It cheese cloth must overlap the strainer edges by quite a bit since you will be folding it over to cover the cheese. Remove the cheese from the Vitamix and place it in the center of the cheesecloth and strainer. Fold the cheesecloth over the cheese and completely cover it. Place a heavy weight of approximately 1 lb. on top of the cheese. This will press the whey out of the cheese into the stainless steel bowl. Let the cheese sit on the counter for 24 hours. This will cause it to naturally ferment.
Milk Chocolate
Note: This is a tempered chocolate recipe.
Ingredients:
2 cups shaved organic cacao butter
¾ cups organic cacao powder
1/3 cup raw chopped cashews
2 tbsp. Sun Warrior Protein Powder
¼ tsp. Himalayan salt
¼ tsp. vanilla powder
½ cup xylitol powder
Note: This recipe needs to be prepared twice. The Vitamix can only handle one recipe at a time. One of the recipes needs to be placed in a sealed container, placed in the refrigerator, and allowed to harden into a block of chocolate.
Directions:
Supplies Needed:
Digital thermometer, a sheet of parchment paper, a squirt bottle, latex gloves, two clean spatulas, a stainless steel bowl, and two heart candy molds. Place the molds on a teflex sheet. Clear out a space in the refrigerator to fit the teflex sheet into. Place the molds on one end of the teflex sheet and a sheet of parchment paper on the other end. Make sure that all of the supplies are completely dried. Make sure that the Vitamix container is totally free of any moisture because the recipe will be ruined otherwise.
Cheese Ingredients:
1 8oz. bag of dried Montmorency cherries (Trader Joe’s)
4 tsp. of Cherry Cabernet Vinegar (Napa Valley)
2 tbsp. organic maple syrup
¼ tsp. pink Himalayan salt
1 tsp. extra virgin cold pressed olive oil
¼ tsp. smoked paprika powder
1 cup chopped pistachios
½ cup chocolate slivers from chocolate block (above)
Note: The xylitol powder is too gritty for chocolate and must be ground more. Take the xylitol powder and place it into the Vitamix dry blender. Blend until it is a very fine powder. Chop the cashews into fine pieces. Sliver the cacao butter by shaving it. Take all of the ingredients and place them into a Vitamix. Turn the Vitamix on medium to high setting. Use the tamper the whole time you are blending because the Vitamix will over heat if you no not help it with the tamper. About 1 minute into the blending, turn the Vitamix off and scrape down the sides of the container with a spatula. Turn the Vitamix back on and keep mixing with the tamper. Monitor the temperature until it reaches 42 degrees. Do not scrape the sides down once it becomes liquid because when the chocolate reaches 42 degrees, only the middle will be suitable for use. Take a large stainless steel bowl and a spatula. Pour the liquid part of the chocolate into the stainless steel bowl. Bring the temperature down to 31.5 degrees by stirring the chocolate continuously in the stainless bowl with a clean spatula. Carefully fill the squirt bottle up with chocolate. Swirl the chocolate onto the parchment paper in circles. Make a row of swirls that join together on the paper like a spider web. Next, fill up the heart molds with chocolate from the squirt bottle. Place the teflex sheet into the refrigerator for 15 minutes.
Directions:
Take one cup of dried cherries and chop them into medium sized pieces. Take ¼ cup of the cherries and set them aside for the garnish. Take the pistachios and chop them into medium sized pieces. Take ½ cup of the pistachios and set it aside for the garnish. Take the block of chocolate from the refrigerator. Place it on a chopping block. Take a large knife and sliver it until you have ¾ of a cup of chocolate slivers. Set aside ¼ cup of the chocolate slivers for the garnish. Take a large mixing bowl and place the cashew cheese that has been soaking overnight into it. Add the cherries, vinegar, maple syrup, salt, olive oil, smoked paprika, chocolate slivers and pistachios to the cheese. Use a large spoon and mix by hand until evenly incorporated. Take seven assorted shaped molds 1 ½’ to 2” high. Place them onto a dehydrator tray with a teflex sheet. Take the pistachios, cherries, and slivered chocolate and mix those together. Place a layer of this mix into the bottom of each mold until you can’t see the teflex sheet under the layer. Pour the cheese into the molds. Press the cheese down with a spatula, making sure there are no air bubbles in the cheese. Flatten the top of the cheese to the mold. Place the tray into the dehydrator for 12 hours at 115 degrees. Remove the cheese from the dehydrator. Take a thin knife with a sharp tip. Gently loosen the cheese from the sides of the molds with the knife. Holding the cheese in one hand, gently remove the mold from the cheese with the other hand. Place it back into the dehydrator for another 6 to 8 hours. Remove it from the dehydrator and place the cheese on a decorative plate.
Garnishing Directions:
Take 7 toothpicks. Take some cherries from your bag. Place the cherries on a chopping block. Starting in the center of the cherry, cut 5 slices from the center through the end, leaving the other side of the cherry intact. Run a toothpick through the bottom of the cherries and use as many as you need to for the length of each mold. This will be the centerpiece for each cheese. Refer to the photo if needed. Then take some pistachio slivers and insert them between the cherry slices on the toothpick. Refer to the photo if needed. Remove the chocolate from the refrigerator that is on the dehydrator tray. The chocolate will just naturally break apart as you take it off of the paper. Take a sharp knife and make a slit in the top of the cheese directly in back of the cherry centerpiece. Take a piece of the chocolate from the parchment paper and stand it up in the slit you just cut. Take some heart candies and place them on the decorative plate around the cheeses. Remove the chocolate block from the refrigerator and melt 2 Tbsp. using a double boiler. Place it into a squirt bottle and put some chocolate dots around the cheeses on the plate.
Will last 3 to 5 days in the refrigerator. Will last 1 month in the freezer.