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.
