Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Vegan whip topping discovered in India!!! :)


Last year when I visited Munnar, the chef at our resort, Chef Padmanabhan, was an awesome guy. He listened to everything we said about being Vegan and each night he took time off his busy schedule to take us around the buffet spread and tell us exactly which items we could eat. It was when he offered us this absolutely delicious pudding style dessert that we found out it was made with a dairy free whip topping. It was an amazing discovery!!! The chef also told us that since dairy free products have a much longer shelf than the ones with milk products in them, many well known pastry places actually use this in their desserts.

The name of the brand is Rich's and when we did a search online we found out that they supply their Non Dairy Whip Topping (the only Vegan item they carry) only in institutional quantities on wholesale only. This meant that we couldn't directly place a retail order from them. Just our sucky luck! :( So for the next few months, we just kept our eyes wide open at grocery stores just in case it was sold retail. But what do you know...nothing! So finally we got tired of looking and the burning desire for Non Dairy Whip Toppings faded from our consciousnesses.

Then last week we went to Metro and while I had gone to check the ingredients of MTR's Frozen Masala Dosa (and to my disappointment, the $%^&ing thing contained ghee), hubby dearest was hanging around the other frozen foods section. When I turned to look at him he was excitedly motioning me to come near. I was puzzled since he isn't a regular wifey-I-miss-you-when-you're-not-next-to-me kinda guy. But hope sparked and I went near him hoping for a kiss, a hug or in the least a hand-holding and he turned me to the freezer saying 'LOOK!' with a HUGE grin on his face. And there it was!! Rich's Non Dairy Whip Topping!!! Needless to say, this is what was running in my head 'haaaaa-lle-lu-jah, haaaa-lle-lu-jah... ha-le-lu-jah, ha-le-lu-jah, ha-leee-luuu-jah-ah-aah'. And it took me every ounce of effort not to cover his face with burning kisses right there in public!! :D

Well anyways, we brought the precious pack home and froze it. Then I un-froze it and whipped the whole thing little at a time, all in one day (painful process) and re-froze it.

It arrives sweetened so if you take a scoop of the frozen thing and eat it, it tastes just like the good old, unflavored, plain-milk ice cream of yore. YUM!!

If you apply it on cake (Vegan and homemade of course) and let it sit for a while, it makes a most fantastic pastry.

And if you get the bright idea of melting vegan chocolate chips and blending that with the whip topping, it tastes pretty much like vegan chocolate mousse (whose easy original recipe seems like a long drawn process now).

Apply this vegan chocolate mousse on vegan cake... you'll understand what Lara Fabian was talking about when she said "Heaven, I'm in Heaven" ta ta da.....

Note: All "non-dairy" whipped creams are not vegan. Check the video below to understand how to differentiate the vegan creams from the non-vegan ones.



14 comments:

  1. WHO THE HECK puts GHEE in bloody DOSA? I bet you it was a northerner. See, this is what happens when you take good, honest food out of Chennai--it gets perverted by ghee. Eeeeeeew. We were at this friend's house, who was from Trinidad. They are family friends of many many years, and we love them dearly. She had used this cookery book that had a recipe for uppuma. She made it SPOT ON, right? But, for some stupid reason, the book said to use ghee. Ewww.

    Congrats on finding the nondairy topping though! That's awesome that you have it. Now tell me. Was the nondairy topping as good as a hug or kiss from your hubby? Almost as good? What a fabulous hubby you have to understand your love for all things vegan!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah ah ah... now don't go starting a North Vs South battle on my blog mister!!

    Sounds to me like you haven't visited India in a LOOOONG time...

    Remember, our Southern grannies have been just as guilty of pumping everything with ghee and butter as the Northern ones. So we have every right to feel ashamed of the cow torture in our bloodlines. And you know the worst part? MTR is a purely South Indian restaurant. One of the oldest and most famous in Bangalore for.... yep Masala Dosas practically dipped in ghee!! Oh and here's some more bad news for you... ALL restaurants make Upma with ghee, even the idli-dosa fast foods!! Yuck right?, so if you're ever in a restaurant in India, specifically a South Indian one, don't eat Upma. Oh and just in case you don't already know, don't eat Rava Idli either... the batter contains curds (yogurt).

    Thanks for being happy for me about the whip topping. It really was a fantastic discovery :)

    I'm lucky, my hubby's Vegan too. In fact he became one before I did :D

    So we go on all our adventures and dessert cravings and disappointments and ultimate blissful eating together!! Through and through :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. ::laughs:: I'm being silly, of course. The North Indians gave us our love for Basmati and saffron. You know if you have a Tamilian reading about something different from how his amma did it, he'll have to complain that everything north of Coimbatore is savage wilder-land or something!

    OMG there are soooo many Tamilians in Bangalore. My sister in law speaks both Kannada and Tamil fluently. Trust me, I'm well mindful of the amount of ghee they'd smother everything in. From chukkry to pongal, it'd have some ghee in there somewhere. And roti? Forget it. It /has/ to have butter or ghee. Ewwwwww.

    That's gross that they've started to pitch ghee into uppuma! What a mess! Poor cows.

    You know what? Come to think of it, I think I recall Narula's in Delhi throwing ghee onto the masala dosa. Weird, huh? But in Thyagaraja Nagar in Chennai, they use oil. There's this tiny dosa place that's right by the train station where they do those lovely paper dosa with the potatoes and sambhar and cocoanut chatni. It's wonderful.

    I've heard they started putting ghee in the cocoanut chatni! ACK!

    Love the blog, by the way.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks! :)

    I generally dislike Chennai but the sound of that masala dosa is making me wanna go to T-Nagar right now :)

    Guess I'll just have to settle for the Sagu Masala from Janardhan for now :)

    Ghee in coconut chutney??? You got to be kidding me!!! Coconut oil, I've heard, but ghee... never.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey Susmitha!! I would LOVE the to get this Rich's Whipped topping.... but I just checked the website and under ingredients they list Sodium Casinate (A milk derivate)!! :0(((( I HATE HATE HATE to be a party pooper, but would you pleaseee check if the one that you get does NOT have this ingredient, and if so, what EXACTLY is the product name, so that I can get it tooooo!! :0)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Sneha, the Sodium Casinate is in their flavored whipped creams. The plain non-dairy one doesn't have any. That's the reason we always only get the large, plain 2kg blue pack. This one: http://www.richgraviss.com/topping%20&%20icing.html

    Also lately, I've been able to buy something called Merry Whip at a local baking institute. A friend introduced me to it and I felt that it tastes better and whips quicker than Rich's. See if you can find that near you as a back up option.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thats absolutely one of the best food-related things I have heard in a LONGGG time!! :0D THANK YOU THANK YOU!! :0) I see Real Whip is available here in the US. In fact they list their office address as Georgia!! YAY!! :0) But sadly, Merry Whip doesn't even come up in Google searches. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers, eh?! :0) Thanx again!! :0DDDDDDD

    ReplyDelete
  8. Dude, if you're in the US of all places, why are you even wondering about these things?? You can easily get whipped cream (no work for you!) in spray cans from Vegan Essentials or Pangea.

    Also, if you're buying Real Whip from there, re confirm if it is vegan (I remember the site saying it's vegan, but just to be safe confirm) because the ingredients might differ from country to country.

    ReplyDelete
  9. heheheh!! Its been ages since someone called me dude... I <3 it!! :0D And honestly, its not as easy as you think to get whipped cream thats vegan. I mean you do, but its really not great. And ordering food stuff... esp stuff that needs refrigeration, online, is usually pretty expensive. :0(( So, this is really good stuff. I have heard a lot of good things about the Rich's brand. I know a lot of other Blre bloggers use it too. So I can't WAITTT to get my grubby paws on it!! :0D And also check this out -> http://www.richwhip.com/products.html so DOUBLE YAY!! :0D

    ReplyDelete
  10. It explicitly says VEGAN!! Whoop! Whoop!! :D

    Oh I guess it's different when you live in the US. For those of us who travel there once in a while, buying food stuff online has no limits! We hoard like crazy and bring back overweight baggages bursting with vegan goodies home. :D

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hello,
    Great blog post!

    We're new to India and trying to find somewhere in Bengaluru that sells either Rich's Whip topping or the Merry Whip... Any pointers gratefully received!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi Rez, Merry Whip is available at the Institute of Baking and Cake art (at the corner of Mission Road and Double Road). They have a lot of great baking supplies. Just look them up online.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for the super quick response!! 👍🏻

      Delete
  13. @sneha, go for the ones that says dairy free on the package, all their products are vegetarian, but just this one is vegan > http://www.richgraviss.com/whip-topping/

    ReplyDelete