Sunday, November 19, 2006

Easy chai vanilla mousse with chai almond nougat

Lazy Sundays call for lazy sunday desserts. I was kinda comatose all day and I managed to make some yummy sprouted sushi again. Very yum.

Not to sound like a lame infomercial or product endorsement but I love the bolthouse drinks. Love the "green goodness" when I haven't been eating alkaline; it's full of powerful alkalizing goodness. I also quite like the chai vanilla perfectly protein. It's packed full of soy protein, is naturally sweetened and it just tastes sooooo good I thought I could make a dessert out of it. Apparently it's possible!



Chai vanilla mousse with chai almond nougat

The mousse:
2 cups Bolthouse "perfectly protein"
1/2 cup soy milk
2 tablespoons agar agar (half a bar)

1/4 cup soy milk
1 tablespoon arrowroot

The nougat:
1/8 cup agave nectar
1/8 cup granular soy lecithin
1/8 cup perfectly protein

1 tablespoon chopped almonds
cardamom
cinnamon
ground clove

Oil molds with almond oil or safflower oil. Add the perfectly protein, soy milk and agar agar (torn into pieces) to a saucepan on high/medium heat and stir occasionally. Now's a good time to start working on the nugat. When agar is fully dissolved, allow the mixture to reach a near boiling point. Make a slurry out of the soy milk and arrowroot and add it to the mixture. Stir for about 30 seconds until the mixture feels thicker. Pour into molds and put them in the fridge for about 2 hours before serving.

In a small GLASS bowl, add all the ingredients (except the spices) and almonds and mix together. Fill a larger bowl with boiling water and float the glass bowl in it while mixing the ingredients together. You may need to do this a few times to get the lecithin to melt. You may also need to pour boiling water over a metal spoon and using it to mix the ingredients together. Sprinkle on the spices into the mixture until it tastes right (I didn't measure the spices sorry). Fold in almonds.

Place the mousse dessert on a plate and top with nugat. And enjoy!

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In other random news: I bought a really cute lemon juicer and not only does it really work well but it's just so cleverly designed. I just thought I would share it with all of you.

20 comments:

Eat Peace Please said...

I forgot how I found your blog, but I'm glad I did. You are creative and I like your style. I really like that lemon juicer, super-cool.

Very interesting chai nougat mousse flan-custard like creation. Wow!

Anonymous said...

You are so creative! This looks like the perfect lazy Sunday dessert. I've never heard of the Bolthouse drinks before but I'm totally hoping I can find some now after checking out the site. The green goodness, the blue goodness, and the vedge have all piqued my interest. YUM!

Your lemon juicer is really fun and cute. I like it when designers create fun and quirky items instead of the plain ol boring ones.

bazu said...

Hey, we have those bolthouse drinks here too, but I've never tried the protein (the white one, right?) only the green one. I love green juice. I will trust your review and try the protein one, and maybe make up some mousse!

And your juicer is SO cute. I love good design. I recently saw a happy face spatula and just had to have it!!

Anonymous said...

I can't see the photographs so I'll have to come back later but its sounds delicious.

Although I love the Bolthouse drinks, I confess that what I like most about them are the bottles. LOL They are so beautiful ! They catch my eye everytime and I tried the drinks because of the bottles.
Good advertising, eh ? ;-)

urban vegan said...

oh la la, that looks great. I don't think they sell bolthouse around these parts--but I'll have to check.

JENNA said...

i sell bolthouse drinks at the shop i work in. i'm very tempted to take one home and make this desert. It looks very delicious and very easy.

JENNA

Anonymous said...

I've seen those drink before, but never tried them. With your recommendation I will pick one up next time!

aTxVegn said...

That's the coolest dessert I've ever seen! I've never used lecithin before. Does it have a taste?

My mom buys boltinghouse drinks every time we go to Whole Foods.

Was that juicer labeled as such, because I would have never known that's what it is - very nice, and in my favorite color!

Candi said...

Once again, a beautiful masterpiece! *cheers* You create food art here, and I love it.

That juicer is so cute! :P

I never heard of Bolthouse drinks, but I'll probably grab some on our roadtrip, now that you pointed them out. I like the sound of "perfectly protein!"

{[hugs}}

Valentina said...

i'm totally your fan. you're a great art-vegan cook!

Eat Peace Please said...

Can you tell me what the equivalent of 1/2 of an agar bar would be in agar flakes? Thanks!

Ben Kaelan said...

Thanks for all the comments everyone. After some thought I think if I make this recipe again I'll wisk in 1/4 cup of almond butter just to give it more richness and less jello like consistency. But I ate all four desserts without complaint hehe.

Eat peace please: Thank you for your generous praise he he he. I'm glad you found my blog too! I'll link to your blog shortly :) To answer your agar agar question: 1 bar of Agar is = to 4TBS which is technically equal to 2 teaspoons of agar flakes. So half a bar of agar is equal to 1 teaspoon of the flakes. Word of advice; the flakes can sometimes have more of a fishy taste than the bars which is easily overcome by sweetness; so just to be on the safe side I'd wisk in a generous tablespoon of agave nectar into this recipe if you use the flakes. :) Let me know if you have any more questions.

VivaciousV: It is a very lazy dessert indeed. The Bolthouse drinks are the shit! You should be able to find them.. I mean they are an American product. I'll tell you that through my many travels as a flight attendant, I noticed every huge supermarket had these. Even Calgary (Which is our Canadian equivalent to Texas... cowboys and steak and cattle etc).

Bazu: I love the green one too but I have a feeling it's a bit of an acquired taste. I remember not liking it so much before but now I love it. Plus it's sooo good for you! The white one is indeed the vanilla chai and is very addictive; I tried 4 times to make a dessert with this but everytime I saw it in the fridge I'd go "oh I'll just take a sip."... half an hour later the whole bottle was gone! LOL. Try it... but I warned you about its addictive nature :)

Gaia: Sorry about the pictures! That won't happen anymore; I took care of that. My site was getting so much traffic that they were cutting off the pics. I've never managed to post pics in blogger. Urgh! The bottles are pretty awesome; they're like a modern plastic version of those 1920 milk bottles.

UrbanVegan: Really? You guys have a Maoz!!! You should have bolthouse heheeh. Maybe check their website for a vendor's list? Every major supermarket sells them here; it's not even the health food stores. By the way... you're making me consider a road trip to philly to get some MAOZ... it's a good thing I'm going to Amsterdam 3 weeks from now.

B36: I hope you do. It's not a very sweet dessert. It's actually very milk and very light and I quite like that. If you want something sweeter though you might want to try adding some agave or using all bolthouse drink instead of the soymilk portion. I that it's definately a recipe that's easily tweaked for whatever outcome you want.

Megan: It's rare I sound like a product endorsement but I absolutely love this stuff. I just wish it wasn't so expensive, but the price is worth it. I tend to think of it as a treat like a starbucks venti soy decaf latte which would come to the same price. I've tried the berry one, the strawberry banana one, the green goodness and the chai vanilla and I love them all!

Diann: To be honest; I had never used it either other than taking 1 tablespoon mixed with juice or water three times a day. It's an amazing supplement. It's basically there to give a buttery texture but it does have a slight nutty taste to it which works well with this. The lemon juicer was in a box with a bunch of other lemon juicers so it made the link easier hehe. I love love love that thing; it's even better than the other one that mysteriously disappeared from my apartment. I blame fairies!

Candi: you're so sweet! You always have the nicest things to say to me hehe. Try the bolthouse drinks! It may actually be a great idea to pick some up on the roadtrip; the perfectly protein has 50g of protein per bottle which is about your daily recommended amount (well I know it is for me based on my height and weight). I used to
get this in calgary when all I ate were salads and there was no tofu anywhere in sight and I was concerned about my protein intake. :)

Valentina: Awww thanks! I love fans! By the way, my Amsterdam trip is back on; december 12th and 13th. I can't wait to hear about the vegan places you suggest :)

Valentina said...

de waaghals is a nice restaurant, and there's always the asian street. you may see very weird bad stuff to eat.. :( but there have great vegan sushi and soups!
but the felafel in amsterdam surely deserves A++++++!
have fun!
-your italian fan

Jackie said...

What a wonderful pudding and the pancakes look great as well.

We don't have anything like Bolthouse perfectly protein but I suppose it could be made by mixing soy milk with vanilla chai.

Candi said...

50g of protein!! Holy crap! Yes! I will have to get some for the road trip!

I stopped by again to say that your comment today had me laughing. :P Yes, grab some eyeliner! You'd look hot.

Your dishes and silverware make me envious. When I relocate, I'm off to IKEA to see what cute stuff they have. It's all about the blog. lol!

Thanks for the comment today!

Ben Kaelan said...

Valentina: thanks for the suggestions... I went to the de waaghals websites and it looks very good. I definately want to check out the chinatown now :)

Jackie: I've been trying to mimic the bolthouse drink unsucessfully... I'm going to try it again soon as soon as I get my hands on more organic applejuice. I'll keep you posted.

Candi: Holy crap indeed! Mucho Protein! I totally wasn't going to comment on that post cause I didn't have anything valuable to say and then I thought "oh man I know what I can write". I thought that would make you laugh :)

You know what's funny? I bought my dishes in SCOTLAND on a layover hahaha. It was the best and stupidest idea I ever had. I packed them in my rollie and my rollie was SO HEAVY... thank god I was crew cause there's no way I would have gotten away with that as a carry-on. I bought them at a store that was 3KM away from the hotel... and my shoulders hurt for days from carrying them home. The plate on that site I got as part of a sushi set I bought at a kitchen store for really cheap. The 'tiny fork' I got as a free gift at starbucks once hehe. I'm a big dishes whore; I found some really nice bowls I wanna get at this little french kitchen store downtown. Going to get them this weekend! I got my wagamama cookbook and I need bowls like that...

KDL said...

I, too, love the Bolthouse Vanilla Chai Tea. I never would've thought to make it into a dessert, but it's such a wonderful idea!

Anonymous said...

Are you sure it's a juicer?
It looks like it was designed for something else.

Nonetheless, I like the fact that it stands up, keeping the "juicing" part up away from the surface its placed on.

Elizabeth Jarrard said...

that looks delicious!! Using Bolthouse perfectly protein as a pudding base is such a great idea!!

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