Fab and Delicious Food

Hello everyone!  Hope you all have been having a great day!  I have some fun product reviews and recipe reviews for you today!

Recently, I received some coupons from Merideth, a representative for Nasoya, so that I could try Nasoya Silken Creations.  Thanks, Merideth!

Here’s some information that Meredith so kindly sent me:

Silken Creations is a non-dairy dessert starter from Nasoya. Made from whole soybeans and sweetened with natural cane juice, Nasoya Silken Creations has the consistency of a rich, creamy pudding and blended with fruit and ice makes a delicious smoothie.
 
Silken Creations is low in calories (only 110-120 per half cup serving), low in fat (only 1-1.5 grams per serving) and a good source of protein (3 grams per serving). In addition to being lactose free and vegan, it is gluten free, kosher, has no cholesterol, and is all natural.
 
Available in three flavors, Dark Chocolate, Strawberry and Vanilla, Silken Creations makes easy & delicious pies and frozen treats.

So far, I have tried the vanilla and chocolate flavors.  I’m still looking for the strawberry flavor and will let you know how it is if I find it!

Here’s how they look:

Nasoya Vanilla Silken Creations

Nasoya Dark Chocolate Silken Creations

The taste and texture of the Nasoya Silken Creations is excellent!  They look just like pudding, and I tried both the vanilla and dark chocolate Nasoya Silken Creations, and they both taste exactly like pudding!  You would never know that it was made from whole soybeans!  And the texture was like that of pudding – very thick, smooth, and creamy!  It’s really good!  You could definitely just eat this straight from the carton! 

Also, the Nasoya Silken Creations products are supposed to be great for use in a variety of recipes. 

After asking my lovely readers what I should make with the Nasoya Silken Creations, a reader suggested I make brownies, so that’s what I did, using the recipes from the Nasoya website to make them. 

I made both Blondies and Brownies since the recipes are pretty similar, (the main difference is the flavor of Silken Creations you use – vanilla for the Blondies and chocolate for the Brownies) which made it easy to make them at the same time! 

The recipes were very simple and had a short ingredient list, but I actually ended up omitting half of the ingredients anyway.  Basically, I cut out the sugar, oil, and salt, reduced the amounts of baking soda and chocolate chips, and substituted oat flour for the flour. 

Here’s an explanation of why I did so: 

The Vanilla Nasoya Silken Creations has 20 grams of sugar per serving, while the chocolate one has 18 grams of sugar per serving.

Because the Vanilla and Chocolate Nasoya Silken Creations already contain a good amount of sugar, and taste sweet enough on their own, I decided to reduce the amount of chocolate chips, and omit the sugar, which led to other recipe modifications.  I omitted the oil since the first step said to mix the sugar and oil together, and since I wasn’t using sugar, I figured I wouldn’t need the oil either.  Also, after I mixed everything all together, it seemed like the batter was moist enough that it didn’t need the oil.  And since I was leaving out half of the ingredients, I cut the amount of baking soda in half. 

I kept the amount of flour the same, but instead of using just regular flour, I decided to try and use oat flour.  I have never tried it in a recipe before, and therefore didn’t have any on hand, but it is actually quite simple to make at home.  All I did was pulse some rolled oats in the Magic Bullet blender until it resembled the texture of flour.  So simple! 

I got the information about oat flour and how to make oat flour here and hereand here. 

Oat Flour

Anyway, I halved the recipes for the Blondies and Brownies so that I could try them both!

Here are the Blondie and Brownie batters:

Blondie Batter

Brownie batter with chocolate chips

Brownies and blondies all ready to be baked

 Here’s the finished product:

Blondies and brownies all set to eat

Because I left out half of the ingredients, it tasted exactly like what it was – a blondie/brownie at it’s very basic. I’m not sure if a lot of people would like it, because if you make the same modifications I made, you might think it is too bland.  However, I loved how the blondies/brownies came out.  It tastes like a VERY basic cookie dough that would be excellent with the addition of nuts, dried fruit, candy, etc.  But, it doesn’t really taste like cookies/blondies/brownies since I omitted the sugar, oil, and salt.  HOWEVER, if you made it the way the recipe was originally written, I am sure they would taste just like regular cookies/blondies/brownies!

Anyway, I actually thought it was good with the modifications I made for a couple of reasons!  The oat flour was excellent!  I would definitely use it in recipes again!  It gave the blondies/brownies a really nice nutty flavor, and it gave them a good soft, chewy texture.  It also gave the blondies/brownies a more wholesome taste, since it was the dominant flavor, with subtle hints of the vanilla and chocolate flavors from the Nasoya Silken Creations.  Since I left out the sugar, these did not taste too sweet at all, and in fact, I think they would make a good breakfast treat – much like a scone (not too sweet), but with a bit of a moister texture.  Also, everything held together just fine without the addition of the oil and wasn’t crumbly at all.  They weren’t particularly doughy like cookies or fudgy like brownies, nor were they really dry like scones.  They were somewhere in between, and had their own unique texture and taste.

I really liked using the Nasoya Silken Creations in baking because it was so easy to use!  Since it already tastes like pudding/a sweet dessert, you really don’t have to add a whole lot of ingredients to a recipe like you normally would since the flavor (vanilla or chocolate) and texture (smooth and creamy) is already there.  It’s a good ingredient to use in baking because it meshes well with other ingredients in terms of taste and texture – it doesn’t taste funny at all, but rather just blends right in.

Since I halved the blondies and brownies recipes, I actually still have some vanilla and dark chocolate Nasoya Silken Creations leftover, which means I get to try out more recipes!  As I mentioned, I really liked the blondies/brownies, especially with the modifications I made to the recipes.  I would definitely make them again, the exact same way.  However, I think that for a nice sweet treat, I would use the rest of the vanilla Nasoya Silken Creations to make a banana apple walnut bread, which I think would taste wonderful!  And I might make a small cheesecake with the leftover dark chocolate Nasoya Silken Creations!  I’ll let you know how they turn out! 

Thanks again to Merideth for the coupons! 

For more information on the Nasoya Silken Creations, please click here. 

And for Nasoya Silken Creations recipes, please click here.

Have a good night!

Edited to Add:

Nasoya Silken Creations is now called Nasoya Silken Style Creations. 

Please see this post for more info.  Thanks!

July 1st, 2009 | Tags: blondies, brownies, Nasoya, Nasoya Silken Creations, oat flour, Recipe Reviews | Category: Baking, New Recipes, Product review, Recipe Reviews, Recipes I've tried | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL