glaivemaster

Ingredients

  • 80g cashews
  • 80ml water
  • 1 – 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp tahini
  • 15g grated carrot
  • 1 – 3 tsp salt
  • ¼ tsp paprika
  • ¼ tsp mustard powder
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • ¼ cup nutritional yeast

Method

  1. Add all ingredients to blender and blend. If it's too paste-like, add more water until it's all flowing around nicely. If you ever add too much water, it can always be reduced for longer on the heat.
  2. Add to cooked pasta (or lasagne, or top a pizza, or...)
  3. Heat until desired thickness (~20 minutes)

Notes

I tend to do this by eye, so some of the ingredients listed may not be a perfect amount. Experiment to find your preferred amounts.

Cashew milk

The base of this sauce is cashews blended with water to make a sort of thick cashew cream/milk. I've not tried using pre-made supermarket cashew milk before, but you may be able to get it to work roughly the same (I reckon it might end up a bit watery)

I usually soak the cashews and drain before blending. This helps soften them for weaker blenders, but also I've read (no citation) that eating too many cashews can be harmful. Since I use cashews a lot, and it does make blending easier, I err on the side of caution. If you have a strong blender and aren't subsisting on a cashew-based diet, you probably don't need to.

To soak: Either soak in cold water for an hour or two, or boil a kettle and soak for 10 – 20 minutes. Drain if you're worried about cashew toxins.

This base of cashew milk works as a vegan substitute for most cream-based dishes. It's thick by itself, thickens even more with heat, and holds air really well. Keep it in your back pocket.

Garlic powder

It's important that this is garlic powder, not garlic cloves (or garlic granules). There's just something about powdered garlic that has the right combination flavours.

Nutritional yeast

If you've never heard of this, you're right, it does sound gross. But it tastes delicious. It's a yellow, flaky substance you can usually find in the vegan section of the supermarket these days. It has a sort of nutty, cheesy flavour that's good for adding umami to recipes.

It's not actually crucial for this recipe, but it's noticeable when it's missing, so I'd recommend trying to include it.

Optional ingredients

Cashew milk and salt/garlic are really the main drivers of this sauce, and a lot of other ingredients are optional to a greater or lesser extent.

Carrot is highly optional, and I usually don't bother with it because it's kind of fussy to grate a carrot. That said, I do notice the difference when I put it in, so I still include it in the official recipe.

Apple cider vinegar is a bit of an odd one. Mostly it just helps to thicken the sauce, but it also adds a lot of sourness if you like that (I usually do). However, it's not required for thickening, and I sometimes leave it out if I've run out, or forget. Lemon juice also works well here, or miso paste.

Olive oil could really be any nice, cooking oil. I usually use rapeseed these days, because it's cheaper and it's what I have to hand. It's another non-necessary ingredient that I don't always use, but it adds some fat if that's what you're after.

Tahini is pretty crucial. Technically I've done this recipe without and it's still fine, but it's really noticeable when it's missing. If you don't want to buy it in, you can still make this, but I'd probably look to increase some of the other flavours or make sure to include carrot otherwise it ends up a bit flat.

Salt is definitely important here, and this is easy to adjust to your personal preference. I also sometimes use soy sauce as well/instead, which slightly changes the flavour profile.

Mustard powder is pretty important, but also easy to use too much of. Add more than a dab and you've got a big mustard sauce (maybe you'll like that, but it's not what I'm usually aiming for). I've not tried using premade mustard in any quantity so can't advise on whether it works or not.

Heating

This needs heating to thicken up, but how you do that is up to you. I often just throw it in a pot with some already-cooked pasta and warm it gently until it thickens up. An even lazier version is putting it in an oven dish with cooked pasta and heating at ~180C for 20 – 30 minutes.

As noted in the recipe, this also works as a lasagne sauce, and I often use it to make vegan pizza. It tends to thicken well enough at the high temperatures used for homemade pizza (though I tend to make it a bit thicker to ensure it doesn't pool everywhere).

You could also just heat this by itself and top other things (like nachos) with it, or do whatever you want really. The world is your oyster and I'm not your real dad.

Ingredients

  • Vegan pastry (most frozen pastry is vegan, or see below for my recipe)

—

  • 480g cooked pumpkin (pureed to your desired consistency)
  • 150g white sugar
  • 4tbsp golden syrup
  • 2tsp cinnamon
  • 2tsp ground ginger

—

  • 100g cashews (soaked)
  • 150ml water
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice

—

  • 12tbsp aquafaba (see below)

Method

The ingredients section is split into 3 main parts, because that's pretty much how we make the pumpkin pie.

  1. Preheat oven to 180C.

  2. Line your pie dish with the pastry.

  3. Mix the pumpkin, sugar, golden syrup, cinnamon and ginger in a large bowl

  4. Make the cashew cream (see below) – add the cashews and water to a blender, and blend until completely smooth.

  5. Add the lemon juice to the cashew cream, blend for a second or two to whisk it in, then add to the pumpkin bowl and mix thoroughly.

  6. Whisk the aquafaba to stiff peaks. Add to the pumpkin mix and fold in.

  7. Pour the mixture into the pie dish. Put the pie in the oven and cook for 1 hour.

  8. Remove the pie and leave on the side until cool. Once cool enough, put in the fridge overnight to let it fully set.

Notes

The cashew cream is used to replace butter and egg yolk. It's fatty and slightly sweet, and gels together with an airy texture when cooked, perfect as a binding ingredient.

The aquafaba directly replaces egg whites in this recipe. It takes a little extra work than egg, but comes out about as good.

Cashew Cream

I prefer to make this at home because then I have complete control over the consistency. This is much thicker than cashew milk which you might buy at the shop (and contains less added stuff, if you care), and if you find that your pie ends up slightly too stiff or slightly too wet, you can easily adjust accordingly.

I recommend soaking the cashews before blending, just because it reduces the chance of creating a bitty cream, and is kinder to your blender. You could overnight soak them if you want, but usually I just cover them with boiled water and leave for about 30 minutes, then drain.

I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to make sure this ends up completely smooth. I let it blend for 5 – 10 minutes to make sure.

The lemon juice helps it to curdle and set. I'm not 100% certain if this is necessary, I haven't tried without yet.

Aquafaba

Literally “bean water”. This is the water that you get from cooking chickpeas, beans etc. and is also the water that those same items are stored in when tinned.

The easiest way to get access to this, therefore, is to just use a tin of “beans in water” – not flavoured water, or salted water or anything. Just water. I find that a 400g tin gives about 12tbsp as required in this recipe – I open just a slit with a can opener and pour to prevent any actual beans getting in.

Traditionally, chickpea aquafaba is the go-to for this sort of thing. It has slightly less taste than other beans, and is white like eggs so won't colour your recipe. Any aquafaba should be good, though, and I've had success with black bean aquafaba, too. Just expect a (very slightly) darker colour to the end result if you go that route.

For whipping, some people seem to say high speed, some say low. I'm not an aquafaba master, so I'm not sure. I tend to use my electric whisk at lowest setting, and it takes about 10 minutes to get to stiff peaks. I've done high speed before as well and it's not much quicker. Do what feels right – it's like whipping egg whites but it'll take longer and you need to use electric really.

Vegan pastry

Most pre-made frozen pastry is “accidentally vegan” already – oil is cheaper than butter, after all. If you want to make your own, though, the basic mix I use is:

  • 150g flour
  • 75g Trex (or other vegan solid baking butter, not margerine)

Mix into breadcrumbs, add a splash of water and bring together into a dough ball. Rest in the fridge for at least an hour.