Dairy-Free Easter Dessert
So my mother just called me and asked me to post a question for her:
This Sunday is the Easter that the western world celebrates, we still have one week until Orthodox Easter, also known as Greek Easter.
This means that for our mock Easter dinner this week there will still be people who are lenten (this means totally vegan). She wants to try and make a dessert called Konafa, which is like two layers of shredded wheat filled with a sweet ricotta mixture. She was going to try and sweeten some firm silken tofu to get the same texture, but isn't sure how well it will work.(All the recipes we found for vegan ricotta substitute were for savory foods like lasagna and included nutritional yeast and other ingredients that would not work with the sweet dessert.
Here's a link if you want to see what Konafa looks like: http://etpourquoinon.free.fr/konafa.html ---Sorry the only picture I could find was in French!
Any advice would be great, thanks! (and yes, we could just wait to eat the real thing, but where's the fun in that?!)
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4 Comments:
Hmmm, this might be tricky. I can tell you that silken tofu won't work, you should get extra firm tofu, then wrap it in paper towels and press it for at least a few hours. Then you can crumble/squeeze it through your hands until you get something ricotta-like in texture.
To make it appropriate for sweets, I would try whizzing it in a blender with soaked, raw cashews (to make it richer) and maybe some vegetable oil and fresh lemon juice, along with agave, then perhaps fold in finely chopped walnuts or almonds.
Maybe dried fruit could sweeten things, too? I made a currant/walnut ball out of pressed tofu once, and I think you could turn that into a pretty good filling. It won't be exactly the same, but it could be tasty.
And you can always make vegan cupcakes as backup!
KarynMC at 12:23PM on 04/08/09
Oh, I forgot to mention, if the filling's supposed to be smooth and sweet tofutti better than cream cheese isn't bad.
KarynMC at 7:46AM on 04/09/09
April's issue of Vegetarian Times has a section on making homemade vegan cheeses. I made one of them last week, and partway through the process, I thought it was amazingly like ricotta cheese. I think if you left out the garlic and added a hit of vanilla and pinch of sweetener, you would have the perfect sub for a sweet ricotta cheese.
Here is a link to my blog post on it: http://tummytreasure.com/blog/?p=1448
Basically, follow the process up to whirring them in the food processor, omitting the garlic and adding any flavorings you'd like. Check the texture then, if it's thick enough, proceed with your recipe as is. If you'd like your fake ricotta a little thicker, wrap it up in cheese cloth and squeeze out some liquid- I didn't get much out of it, maybe a tablespoon or two.
Good luck!
ErikaWaz at 8:42AM on 04/09/09
I second the tofutti sugesstion. Maybe even a whipped combo of tofutti and silken tofu could get the right consistency.
Embackus at 2:10PM on 04/09/09