Homemade Cheese Slices

I had half success and half fail with this lovely cheese slice recipe from Maple Spice called Vegan Unprocessed Cheese Slices. We don't have Veg-Gel so I tried it with Just Wholefoods VegeSet but it wouldn't set properly (ended up freezing them instead). I might retry it with Agar Agar Powder.

I put on the base of my pizza...

Homemade Cheese Slices
Yields 6 large slices.

Ingredients

30g vegan butter (2 Tbsp) I used Nuttalex.
30g plain GF flour (3 Tbsp)
1 cup unsweetened soy milk (240ml) - I used rice milk
¼ cup nutritional yeast
2 tsp tomato paste (puree).
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp garlic powder
1 sachet VegeSet (6g)


Method

Line a baking tray with cling film so that it overhangs enough that you can cover the top.
Place the nutritional yeast, salt and garlic powder in a mortar and pestle and grind until the yeast is a fine powder (I just used a blender). Transfer to a small bowl and stir in the flour and vege-gel.

In another bowl whisk together the soy milk and tomato paste until the paste dissolves. Add to the dry ingredients and whisk really well until no lumps appear.

In a small saucepan add the vegan butter then pour over the mixture. Turn the heat to medium-high (I used my smallest element on high heat) and whisk all the while until the butter melts and incorporates into the mixture. Keep whisking until the mixture thickens and changes from a somewhat nothing colour to a vibrant orange. You can now change to a wooden spoon and keep stirring until nice and thick. It took 3 minutes for mine to get the the wooden spoon stage and another 3 minutes of simmering once thick. I kept the heat on high but again, I used my smallest element here.

With a rubber spatula scrape the mixture into the prepared pan and spread out with a knife until it fills the pan and is nice and even. Take the overhanging cling film and cover the top, pressing down slightly just to get it all nice and even.

Chill until set, it'll take a couple of hours. Peel back the cling film then lift out of the pan and place on a chopping board. Slice into 6 large slices then they are ready to use.

Keep leftover slices on individual pieces of baking paper and covered with cling film in the fridge.
I found it easiest to get them onto bread by picking up the paper and placing them down onto the sandwich then removing the paper.

Great on toast under the grill...