For months, I tried to achieve similar results with other types of nuts, but eventually, I gave up, accepting that none of them came close to the texture and creaminess of cashews.
Why am I still cautious about using cashews for anything other than yoghurt and butter? Because their production can be extremely harmful, both to the environment due to the deforestation needed to make land for plantations, and to the workers on the plantations and in processing factories. Here are a few resources that explain what I mean: video Cashew nuts: Painful working conditions behind popular snack, audio The Hidden Cost: Cashew Nut Processing, article Cashew Nuts: The Hidden Cost of Production, article Cashew Nuts: A Toxic Industry.
In the future, I plan to experiment with other ingredients, perhaps locally produced almonds, other seeds, or even soy milk. For now, I’ve developed this yoghurt recipe to make cashew butter, as a way to avoid buying it from stores at a steep price and with packaging, no matter how sustainable that packaging is advertised to be (since bioplastic is not sustainable, no matter what anyone says).
So here is a recipe I don’t recommend often, but that can be less harmful if the cashews are Fairtrade and bought in bulk.
Cashew yoghurt, creamy but sinful
a simple recipe to avoid buying plastic-packaged products, but really sustainable only if made with bulk Fairtrade cashews.
What is needed
Ingredients:
Tools:
Instructions:
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Hydration
Soak the cashews for at least 8 hours or boil them for 15 minutes, then drain the water.
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Chopping
Place the cashews in a blender or food processor with filtered water and blend for one minute at maximum speed. Scrape down the sides, then blend for another minute.
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Mixing
Add the fermenting cultures (or 200 grams of yoghurt from the previous batch), blend for a few seconds, then transfer the mixture to a reusable container or jars. I use yoghurt cultures from Biovita, and the resulting yoghurt can be reused for up to 10 more batches.
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Fermentation
Place the containers in a fermentation box or device at 42°C for 10-12-14 hours, depending on how tangy you want the yoghurt to be.
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Reusing
Save 200 grams of yoghurt for the next batch.
