It has been a while since I’ve needed to write about the whole allergen-free food availability issue, but it’s time for another chapter in the ongoing drama. Over the past few years, pea protein has become an increasingly more common ingredient in foods, especially dairy free foods. It seems like there are a plethora of plant-based foods hitting the market, but Since Matthew is allergic to peas, and the vast majority of them are using pea protein, the influx has not been beneficial for us. In fact, the popularity of using peas instead of soy has resulted in the loss of more foods for us. Not only has it has been incredibly discouraging, but since pea is not in the top 9 allergens in the country, food manufacturers don’t always have the cross-contact information we need readily available. Add to that the fact that labeling for cross contact isn’t mandated in any way and is completely voluntary, and choosing safe food options can get very hard and incredibly frustrating.
With that bit of background info, let me delve into our current dilemma. Of all the foods that we have struggled to find over the years, a completely dairy free margarine has topped the list. What most people don’t realize, and what I didn’t know until Matthew came along, is that almost all margarines still contain some real milk. Over the years, there have only been a couple that we have been able to use. Our go-to brand has always been Nucoa because unlike the brands specifically marketed as allergen free, it was a very cost-efficient option. And that was especially important when we were in our early American poverty days. The allergen free foods we need are always more expensive, so being able to buy margarine for $1.79 a box rather than $5 a box really helped me stretch our grocery budget as far as it would go. We also liked the performance of Nucoa better than Earth Balance, which has always been the backup butter option as it was the only other safe one around. But finding Nucoa has not always been easy. I used to be able to find it at multiple stores, but over time, it became harder and harder to find. It disappeared from Walmart, but then showed up at Smith’s, so everything was fine. Then it disappeared from Smith’s but showed up at Harmon’s, so again, we were fine. And then it disappeared from Harmon’s and it took me a good stretch of time to find it again, which I eventually did when Winco grocery stores started being built in our area. And for the past 8 or so years, Winco has been the only place we can buy Nucoa.
Last month, with the stock of Nucoa in my freezer dwindling, I sent Kevin to Winco to get some more. Unfortunately, he came home empty-handed. When he couldn’t find the Nucoa, he asked an employee and was told that they no longer stock it. And then the search began anew. Kevin checked at two more Winco locations before coming home with no luck. Another trip to Winco a week later resulted in a conversation with a manager who checked stock in the warehouse and said it wasn’t there anymore either. And while Kev was covering the Winco angle, I was madly searching and researching trying to find another option. Knowing that things change and foods come and go, I’m always looking for more options which is why I already knew that Earth Balance, our back up plan of many years, added pea protein to their recipe last year. I also knew that Country Crock’s new plant butter also has pea protein and Miyoko, which has been wildly popular of late, is made with cashews. Violife, another up and comer in the plant-based food arena, has cross contact with lentils. I did find several that looked like they might work, but because we have allergies that are not included in the FDA’s “top 9,” we always have to do some research in order to ensure the safety of items that are commonly at risk for cross contact with Matthew’s allergens. So, I got busy working on that, hoping that we could find at least one viable option.
With retail options quickly dwindling, I went to the internet and happened to come across an organic, plant-based butter that appeared to be safe for Matthew but is only sold in a very small area of New York as it is produced by a small café. However, I took a look at their ingredients and realized that except for soy lecithin, every single ingredient was something I already have in my kitchen. And that sparked an idea. Instead of searching for “plant butter,” I began a search for “plant butter recipes.” And there were so, so many options to choose from. Far more than I expected, honestly. It seems that there are others who struggle to find a “butter” that works for their dietary needs and many have turned to making their own. So, I perused a number of recipes, found half a dozen that specifically say they have used their concoction for baking, and began to seriously consider giving it a shot.
A week later Kev called Conagra and discovered that they discontinued Nucoa about 6 months ago. It was a blow, I’ll tell you that. It is the brand we have used for the past 19 years and knowing that it is gone for good was extremely discouraging. Several of our potentially safe ones were removed from our list upon receiving responses to our inquiries, and two of them we can’t get any info about, so I figured I had better get serious and figure out how to make my own plant butter. The good part of that is the only ingredient I needed that I don’t already have in my kitchen is a lecithin of some kind. Lecithin is an emulsifier which means that it helps things stay blended. Oil and water are natural enemies, so one of the challenges of homemade plant butter is the fact that it has a tendency to separate. It is optional in many recipes, with the caveat that the end result could separate if melted. Which can create problems since the main reason we need the plant butter is for cooking and baking. And thus, the search for a safe lecithin began. And like all safe food related searches, it was challenging. After several weeks of searching, contacting companies to inquire about cross contact issues, and marking brand after brand off my list of possible options, I finally found a sunflower lecithin that did not have cross contact with any of our allergens. Another five or six days for it to arrive, and I was ready to give plant butter a go.
Some of the recipes I selected included pretty complicated mixing procedures. And that was pretty unappealing. If I need to spend an hour making plant butter that works for us, so be it. But if I can find success in less time, that would be preferable. The ingredients for all the recipes are really similar although ratios change, so as I was deciding which recipe to use first, the ease of preparation became the factor that determined rank. The first recipe up called for adding a bit of acid to soy milk and allowing a few minutes for the milk to curdle. After that, everything gets blitzed up all at once in a blender or with an immersion blender. Super quick. Super easy. And so yesterday afternoon, with a few minutes to spare, I decided it was time to give it a go.
My first batch was made exactly as directed in the recipe. I gave my soy milk five minutes to curdle, measuring everything else out while I waited, whipped out my immersion blender, and literally one minute later, I had plant butter. It was oddly satisfying and so weird to watch a container of liquids immediately thicken and become opaque. It truly is kitchen chemistry! Malia was also mesmerized by how quickly and completely my mixture changed. I poured it into some silicone butter molds and tucked it into the freezer per the instructions and then grabbed a sliver of bread to use as a vehicle for taste testing purposes. And guess what? The concoction did not taste like any of the ingredients. It was a little salty, a lot creamy, and tasted pretty good. I fed Malia a sliver and she agreed. It was actually quite surprising and pretty darn exciting!
With the success of the first batch, I set to work on a second batch with one small change. I added a bit of butter extract to see if I could add a bit of traditional flavor. (Oddly enough, dairy free butter extract is another one of those things that is unexpectedly difficult to find. Most of them still have milk in them. But here’s my question: if you are going to use a butter extract with butter in it, why wouldn’t you just use actual butter?!) Again, it came together and the second time was no less fascinating to watch. Kevin had come up by then, and he also commented on how weird the whole thing was. 😂 I poured batch #2 into molds and once again, Malia and I did a taste test, after which Malia spread the bit that wouldn’t fit in the molds on a slice of bread and ate it. It definitely passed the taste test. That bit of buttery flavor took it from ok to actually being a pretty darn tasty butter substitute.
After a short stint in the freezer, both batches were moved to the fridge and allowed to chill overnight. This morning, the plant butter was softer than I expected it would be and it crumbled a bit on the ends of the sticks when I took it out of the butter molds. But it was still smooth and creamy, not gritty at all and still tasted really nice on a slice of bread. I’m not sure why it crumbled like it did, but if it proves to be a viable option for more than just spreading on toast, I’ll see if I can figure out how to fix that. But I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Next up-the real test. Baking with it.
