Cultured cashew butter- what a discovery! It tastes delicious, tangy, salty and just plain delicious. I have been making raw vegan nut cheeses for ages, but I never thought to actually make it taste more buttery until recently because Ariana loves to spread on her occasional breakfast toast and I’m not a big fan of vegetable spreads.they contain too many unnecessary ingredients.
This cultured cashew butter it’s easy to make and, while the culturing process does take a little time, it’s worth it. It brings an incredible depth of flavour that you cannot achieve otherwise. You could make it skipping the culturing part, but I highly recommend you don’t. After all, you don’t need to be there for it 🙂
I like rather hard butter rather that a softer alternative like margarine. To make it softer, replace 1/2 the coconut oil by a cold pressed rapeseed oil.
2 cups cashews, soaked for 2 hours
1/2 cup water (or enough to blend)
1 probiotic capsule ( I use this brand)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup odourless coconut oil (I use this one)
Pinch of turmeric (for colour, so optional)
Pinch of Himalayan or Celtic sea salt
Blend the soaked and rinsed cashews with the water. Stir in the probiotics and place the mixture in a metal container, as it makes the culturing faster. You can alternatively use a glass bowl. Cover the bowl with cling film (I use a BPA free cling film), with the film touching the surface of the cashew mixture, and punch a few holes with a knife to let out the gases created by the fermentation. By using the cling film you prevent the formation of a crust on the surface of the mixture.
Place the bowl, in a warm place in your kitchen and let it sit for 24-48 hours until it smells and tastes slightly sour. When that happens your cashew base is fermented and full of fabulous gut loving bacteria :). At this point, add the rest of the ingredients, and mix until its all well incorporated. Pour the mixture into a container to shape it (if making a hard cultured cashew butter a silicon mould is the best choice) and place it in the fridge to get hard. For a soft spread the mixture can be poured into a glass jar.
For another dairy free butter recipe, check out our Aquafaba Butter Spread recipe.
