Vegan cream cheese bagel
When I was in New York, I felt in love with the fact that you can get a vegan cream cheese bagel mostly everwyhere. It was often made out of tofu and sometimes mixed with chives, green onions or bell pepper.
Of course we can also buy vegan bagel (and vegan cream cheese) in Germany, but it's just not the same when it's not freshly baked, homemade and with a thick layer of cream cheese. So we decided to do it on our own.
Our cream cheese is based on almonds, not tofu though. You can also use cashew nuts which will work just as good. We'll use a cheesecloth for preparation that we already showed you when doing our vegan feta cheese. So again we can just recommend to buy one or more cheesecloths for your own kitchen. If you're interested in preparing homemade vegan jogurt, cream cheese and other stuff, this is just the best.
Vegan Cream Cheese Bagel
Ingredients
For bagels
- 250 g (2 cups) flour
- 21 g (1 oz) fresh yeast
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 175 ml (0.75 cup) lukewarm plant-based milk
- 1 tbsp baking soda
- sesame, poppyseads, ... for desired topping
For almond cream cheese
- 200 g (7 oz) almonds (peeled)
- 200 ml (0.85 cup) water
- 2 tbsp coconut oil
- 1 tsp arrowroot
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- salt
- white pepper
Instructions
Let's start with almond cream cheese, because that one needs to rest overnight. Soak peeled almonds in warm water for at least 30 min. until softened. Drain and rinse under clear water. Add soaked almonds, water, coconut oil, arrowroot, lemon juice and apple cider vinegar to a stand mixer and blend until smooth. The finer the mixture will now be, the creamier your cream cheese will be in the end. Season with salt and pepper.
Place a clean kitchen towel, but best a cheesecloth over a sieve. Add cream cheese mixture in there, then press together to press out some liquid. Tie the cloth and place the sieve on a bowl or saucepan so the liquid can drop down in there. This whole construction now needs to rest in the fridge for at least 3 hours, but best over night. Afterwards you can suspend the cream cheese into a bowl or jar and stir one more time. If you want, season some more or add fresh chopped herbs.
Bagel time! Add yeast and maple syrup to lukewarm plant-based milk and stir until yeast is dissolved. Add yeast mixture to a bowl with flour and kneat until a smooth dough forms. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rest for approx. 1 hour until the volume has doubbled.
Afterwards divide into 4 equal-sized dough parts and roll into balls. Slightly press them down and stick a tiny glas or whatever you have on hand into the middle of each bagel ball to form the small hole.
In a pot, bring approx. 2 litres (9 cups) of water to a boil. Add baking soda and 1 tbsp maple syrup to water and stir. One after the other, add a bagel to water and let it cook in there for approx. 20 seconds.
Take it out again and directly transfer it onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. When all bagels are ready, bake at 180°C/355°F for approx. 20 minutes. They should not be too crispy but fluffy and soft. Cool down a bit, then slice open and spread almond cream cheese on it.
