Go to the Recipe: Simple, Silky Smooth, Egg-Free Chocolate Custard
Are the cashews critical to the texture of the custard? Unfortunately I have a nut allergy, and I'm wondering if a substitute (or complete omission) might work.
If you use a roasting rack to get a clean chocolate powder coating, how do you then transfer the finished product to the serving dish without damaging the end product?
Also, how did you make this in the fancy (Nordicware?) mold? Same technique with the plastic wrap or something different?
What could be a substitute to the Low-Acyl Gellan Gum F? I live overseas and don't have access to this.
In the recipe it says (under the "The good word on gellan gum" tip) that you can substitute equal quantities of agar agar, it just might affect the test a bit more.
The cashews are needed for the texture. If you leave them out you end up with a more brittle texture that is not the same as a custard. You can try swapping the total amount of water, and cashews with soy milk, or oat milk.
A big ol spatula is what we used, and a sheet of parchment paper.
The ones we used have a non stick coating, if you get the custard very cold, almost frozen you can just pop it right out. No plastic wrap needed.
I would also recommend coconut milk if you can do that.
I made this as written with agar. The texture was fantastic and I didn't notice any off-taste as mentioned in the substitution note.
Glad it worked out for you Karl. There are really good options of agar agar out there, but sometimes you can get a brand that taste a little too sea weedy.
I love this! More vegan recipes please!
So is it just the blending that sides the temperature of the mix?
If nuts are not a big issue but cashews are (FODMAP) - do you have any recommendations for a non-cashew and possible non-vegan option (sorry, this is very specific)?
perhaps I should just try with a bit of hazelnuts and cream?
Just tried this recipe today, it was incredibly good. It has a very similar flavor and texture to your chocolate pot de crème recipe but the presentation makes it feel fancier, and it’s vegan which is an even bigger plus. I also used agar agar for it and it tasted great, no off flavor (I used Kate Naturals agar agar powder).
This method would work great with cream with out any other adjustments. And yes hazelnuts will work but I would still recommend using a raw nut. And with the hazelnut I would soak it over night first.
if I wanted to make a Vegan Neapolitan Custard Cake with 3 layer one Vanilla, Strawberry and chocolate using the same loaf pan and technique. Instead of using chocolate could I use the same amount of Freeze dried Strawberry for one layer? What about vanilla bean added to the mixture and vanilla extract should I up the Cashew amount for texture?
Any advice on how to make this sugar free?
Hi David, first off this method won't work very well for layering. The mixture will set, and the next layer has no way to bind to it. You will end up with three individual layers that will slide apart.
When it comes to making a vanilla, or strawberry base. It should work great how ever you will need to experiment to get the ratios right. Chocolate is adding a combination of Coco butter and solids. Both add to the finished texture.
Nothing that we tested out... but if you are using unsweetened chocolate you can try to just swap out the weight of the sugar with water, and use what ever sweetener you like to get it to the level you want, then add the gellan.
Do you think if I added Cocoa butter instead of regular chocolate to get the creamy mouthfeel for a vanilla version, or strawberry version would work?
If I wanted to do a layered dessert is there a hydrocolloid that you would recommend for vegan pastry custard cakes?
cocoa butter will help for both. And I would say if you look into carrageenan that might work better for you. It's a bit harder with these hydrocolloids to replicate the binding between layers. If you are casting them into a single serving dish like a jar, I don't think you will have the same issues with separation from slicing and portioning.
Really enjoyed this. I didn’t make it completely sugar-free, the chocolate was regular Callebaut Extra Bitter 70% and I used XyloSweet as the sweetener. Our older Vita-mix did have a little difficulty spinning it after adding the chocolate, but I was able to incorporate the Gellan and it all worked out. Looking forward to trying the additional extra flavors.
This was FANTASTIC! Easy, quick, and turned out beautifully, even though my batch never got about 160-ish in the blender. I haven't figured out how the temp should rise off heat. No matter. Highly recommend especially if you need a vegan friendly treat! Home Run Kyl!!
Hi Bearfus, if the mix never got above the 195°f you never really hydrated the Hydrocolloid. If your blender doesn't get it up that hot you might want to transfer to the stove top and bring it to a boil. You will have a different result that way.
But glad you liked it.
Hey Chefsteps/ Kyl I was hoping for some feedback. I was tweaking the recipe and I definitely like the result but I was wondering is there anything to include or change to have a creamier softer mouthfeel?
I substituted the chocolate for cocoa butter and raspberry powder the cocoa butter was 80% the amount of the chocolate from the original recipe. and considering the 54% chocolate I used to make the OG custard was 37% cocoa fat. I am having a firmer, less flexible texture. Any ideas on how to improve the texture?
I used this recipe and method to do different flavored Vegan custards to some success!
Raspberry Rose And Hibiscus vegan custard
750g- 50/50 Rose and Hibiscus Tea
150g- Raw Cashew
34g- Freeze Dried Raspberry Powder
140g- Cane Sugar
270g- Cocoa Butter
6g- Vanilla Extract
2g- Kosher salt
2g- Low Acyl Gellan Gum "F"
Same method basically
Boil water add teas steep five mins, measure out 750g
take Tea, Cashew, Sugar and boil, add to blender while on low speed stream in raspberry powder, blend 3 mins
add cocoa butter, extract, salt. bring to 180
add gellan bring up to 200
(what I did was set up my joule to 203 so I could have more time to set it in individual dessert glasses)this worked well just a quick whisk in between my pours.
Bottom is the Hibiscus Rose Custard
middle is Black Currant and Meyer Lemon Curd
Top Fresh Strawberry in Strawberry Consommé Gelee
any thoughts or other flavored recipes you guys might be working on would be awesome!
thanks Dave
Whoa. love your effort!. So the feedback I would give you is this. Our recipe uses 70% dark chocolate. What that essentially means is that 70% of the chocolate is made up of chocolate mass/ and butter. We would assume that they are using the whole amount of just nibs since that would be the most cost effective way since cocoa butter is more expensive than just using nibs. We know that cocoa nibs are 54-58% cocoa butter to mass, so lets assume 55%. So with this recipe we use 330g of 70% chocolate. So lets say 231g of the chocolate is pure cocoa nib. Then we can take 55% of that to have a safe estimate of 127g cocoa butter.
So for 330g of a 70% dark chocolate we would say it would be broken down into - 127g pure cocoa butter, 104g cacao mass, and 99g of sugar/ flavoring/ stabilizer that they would include.
That would be a long winded answer to me saying... your ratio of the cocoa butter still seems a little high.
Hopefully that is some info that might help you figure out the right ratios. Im not sure anything is going to replicate it exactly but you should get fairly close. Thanks for sharing your experimentation with us.
I was curious about the calculation considering my knowledge of chocolate is limited. I have more tests that I plan on doing and love this base recipe. This is very helpful, I was afraid to go too low and have no structure whatsoever. My job is a Kosher Pareve kitchen and this has been a huge help!
I just made this and it came out absolutely fabulous. Ridiculously creamy and rich and my friends could not believe this is dairy and egg free. That it is so super simple to cook makes it even more unbelievable. More (modernist) vegan recipes please!
Did you have the Control Freak for this recipe? I want to try it but I do not have one of those. Thanks.
Can you expand on this - can we keep recipe as is and just add cream? If so, how much and what would the benefits be?
I don't necessarily need the dessert to be Vegan so I am curious about what additions or changes I could play around with to give it different flavor profiles.
Also, could I use pistachios instead of cashews?
Yes you can use pistachio if you want. This dessert was not developed to be a vegan dessert, it just happens to be and, stands on it's own. You could certainly change up any item you want and get similar results and I recommend you experiment with it. How ever we did not use any cream and we do not have a recommended substitution amount that we tested to or why that would be of any benefit over the developed method we have posted here for you to use.
No need to have a control freak, a simple thermometer is enough.
INTERESTING. Any way to make a non-chocolate version? I wanna play with making a vegan creme brulee.
maybe try cocoa butter and vanilla extract
I would use the vanilla pudding recipe, and up your gelan to 1%-1.5%. You might need to increase the cashew by about 10% as well.
How long does it keep fresh for?
Can white chocolate be substituted for dark chocolate. To maintain the same sugar content the sugar would have to be omitted from the recipe. Will that affect this recipe if the extra sugar is left out?
