The original recipe for my meltable vegan mozzarella called for either commercial soymilk (yuk) or homemade almond milk. I adapted it by using a combo of commercial almond milk and silken tofu.

Today, I decided to try making my own almond milk, which, as it turns out, is SUPER easy. However, it’s not as cheap as commercial almond milk, so I think I’ll likely make it only for vegan cheeses and yogurts and use the regular stuff for my morning almond-milk latte (delivered by the ever-perfect James).

DIY Almond Milk

• 1 cup almond meal (or 1 cup almonds soaked for eight hours)
• 3 3/4 cups water
• 1/4 tsp. salt

Blend on high in the Vitamix for two minutes. Pour through a very fine mesh strainer. I’ve watched videos of people making almond milk and they invariably end up with tonnes of pulp, but I ended up with none! This may be because I started with almond meal, not almonds, or it may be because the Vitamix Goddess is so all powerful that she liquifies the almonds.

The recipe makes four cups, and I need only 1 and 1/3 cups for my cheese, so I’m going to use the rest to take another crack at almond yogurt. The last almond yogurt I tried didn’t work because I used commercial almond milk, so I’ll try it out with the DIY stuff later on.

Aaaaand here’s the recipe for….

Meltable Vegan Buffalo Mozzarella with DIY Almond Milk!

Microwave until melted:

• 2/3 cup refined coconut oil (don’t use virgin coconut oil or it will smell like coconuts)

Blend in the Vitamix:

• 1 1/3 cup homemade almond milk (don’t use commercial stuff because it won’t work!)
• 1/4 cup tapioca flour
• 4 tsp kappa carrageenan
• 1.25 tsp salt

This should take five or six minutes: Pour the ingredients from the Vitamix into a non-stick saucepan on medium-high heat and whisk in the melted coconut oil. Once it’s whisked in (it will take a few minutes), replace the whisk with a spatula and mix continually until the mixture thickens and starts to form “curds.” Reduce the heat to medium low and mix like crazy until the mixture emulsifies and has a glossy sheen. Once the cheese is finished (it should achieve an internal temperature of 175 degrees), remove from heat and add:

• 1 TBS lemon juice

Mix like a madman until combined and pour into a mold. I like a round finished product, so the slices look round on the pizza, so I poured the mixture into a large soup mug to set.

This cheese is absolutely beautiful. I had one problem with the recipe: the oil wouldn’t fully emulsify. I ended up using an immersion blender, but it was fine after that!

And my damn phone ran out of juice, so I have no pictures. I’ll leave you with this cheesy English teacher Christmas joke instead: