New dairy-free soft cheese from the makers of Violife cheese slices, arriving in a range of flavours. Viotros announced this creamy cheese alternative late last year, but it's only recently landed in UK shops. The cheese comes in five flavours - original, herbs, tomato & basil, cucumber & dill and hot peppers. We snagged the plain and herb versions for our review:
The product has very similar ingredients to the company's cheese slices - a blend of starch and coconut oil, with no protein component and no soya. This produces quite a bouncy cream cheese, which is elastic and cohesive.
It spreads fairly easily, but if you try to scoop it with a cracker you'll find it pretty stiff. It's not as firm as Tofutti cream cheese, but is firmer than CreamyRisella. The plain 'original' version tastes a lot like Violife cheese slices, that's to say quite buttery.
The herb version is pretty robustly flavoured, and when eaten cold you might find this a little overpowering. The dominant flavour is basil, with rosemary and other herbs in the mix.
Baking the herby cream cheese is a revelation though. We stuffed some mushrooms with Violife Creamy and baked them for 20 minutes. The roasted herby cheese flavour went really well with the juicy mushrooms.
Cream cheese is a great jacket potato topping. We opted for the herb flavour again, and while the herby flavour is strong at first, the flavours mellow as you eat. The springy texture is a little bit odd, and we'd prefer some protein to go with the carbs for uses like this.
The plain flavour works best in cold dishes, where you're just looking for that creamy, mildly cheesy taste. Paired with a salty cracker and a sliver of pepper, the plain cream cheese was pretty good.
Violife Creamy is an evolution in dairy-free soft cheeses, and doesn't quite have the impact that the (now ubiquitous) cheese slices had when they arrived last year. We would have preferred to see something cultured, with some protein content and naturally fermented flavours.
Years ago there was a vegan cream cheese called Fromsoya that was made with cultured soya milk and was pretty good. It may have been ahead of it's time, because interest in naturally fermented vegan cheese has exploded recently. We look forward to producers like Kite Hill arriving in the UK.
Violife should be thanked though, for bringing a widely available cream cheese to the dairy-free market in the UK (one that doesn't taste foul like Creamy Sheese does). It's not perfect, but it's tasty and versatile - so give it a try.
The Good: Smooth, creamy and versatile
The Not-so-good: Springy texture, strong flavours
Veganoo Score: ★★★☆☆
Viotros - Violife Creamy - Dairy Free Cream Cheese
Viotros - Violife Creamy - Dairy Free Cream Cheese
Footnote: Ingredients
Here are the ingredients panels from the packs we reviewed.
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I love the Toffuti garlic and herb, its fantastic in roasted peppers or melted in pasta! Would love to give this a try next!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the plain creamy cheese, the whole tub disappeared pretty fast! I definitely want to get the herb version now, I'm going to try baking it because those stuffed mushrooms look amazing.
ReplyDeleteI buy the plain violife creamy cheese from Asda, I was really cross to find they have taken it off the shelves and I have written to customer services about it.
ReplyDeleteConstistens freat but It tastes horrible . Like it's chemicals or old butter.. I even tried to put it in some tasty dinner to have a nice texture , but the smell ruins it haha. Sry but I would rate it 1/5
ReplyDelete