Vegan Club: Mouse’s Favourite Cheese Review

Today I’m reviewing Mouse’s Favourite – a vegan cheese company who use nuts to create their delicious cheeses. I first discovered Mouse’s Favourite at London Animal Free Festival and was kindly sent four of their products to try out and review! I’m so glad I came across their stall – they’re one of those small yet magical companies whose products you didn’t realise you needed.

I’ll review the individual cheeses in a minute, but wanted to start by saying this is the best cheese company I’ve found overall since being vegan. Honestly, I find many of the most widely available companies can be a bit hit and miss – a lot of companies have created a lot of products to fill the gaps left by dairy cheese. This means a lot of products out there designed specifically to melt on pizza, or specifically to go with pickle in sandwiches or specifically to barbecue like Halloumi and so on. To me it sometimes feels like a lot of single-use cheese: it’s costly and also leaves a gap in vegan cheeses for cheese solely created to taste good. Where is the traditional, gourmet cheese?

Enter Mouse’s Favourite! Gabriele, the company’s founder, explains on the website that she’s tried to incorporate the “rustic beauty of traditional cheese” into their cheeses. The cheese’s have been in development for 5 years, so they’ve really perfected the art of making nut cheese and there’s a huge amount of variety in their products – whilst the website explains that they don’t melt or age like traditional cheese, I found the four samples I tried to be hugely versatile.

Original Creamy Cashew

This is a lovely, creamy cheese with quite a subtle taste. I was a bit dubious at first as I’m not a massive fan of spreadable cheese (I had vague memories of Philadelphia and DairyLea as a child) but actually the texture is a little thicker than what I remember dairy cheese to be, and the mellow flavour was perfect on salted crackers and toast with black pepper. I also made a really good sauce with this cheese by adding a little to a generic pasta sauce I was making – I found it blended well into the consistency. This really came into it’s own which I made an accidental discovery: this is the most PERFECT vegan cheese I’ve found to date for cream and cucumber sandwiches. If you’re planning on hosting vegan afternoon tea then bookmark this for those quintessential British snacks.

Smoky Creamy Cashew

Slightly stronger taste than the Original, and again slightly thicker cheese. It was more of a pate consistency than a spread which I preferred. Again, I used this cheese for a variety of meals – sandwiches, with jacket potatoes, crackers, in potato salad and so on, and I really appreciated the versatility of this cheese. Vegan products aren’t always the cheapest so to find a hardworking product that lasts for ages is great – with the thicker consistency it wasn’t necessary to use loads of cheese and it lasted us about three weeks (no mould either!).

Rich Aged Dulse

This cheese is one of those outstanding vegan products that non-vegans can’t believe is vegan. The texture is very soft and it has a very strong flavour, more piquant than the other cheeses I tried. I’m out of my depth trying to equate it to some kind of dairy cheese, but imagine something very mature..! I tried in sandwiches, and it was great but I also felt like it was almost a waste of the cheese to be in a sandwich: it deserves quality crackers and fresh seasonings. That’s how good this cheese is! I gave slices of this to many of my “I’d go vegan but I’d miss cheese” friends (btw, lamest excuse ever guys, come on) and nobody had a comeback – it’s just great cheese.

Cedar Washed Rind

This is another outstanding cheese to shut up dairy fanatics. It’s a slightly harder cheese with a thin rind and the flavour is a bit nuttier and mellower than the Dulse (but still stronger than the two creamy cashews). I found this cheese worked really well baked as well as on crackers/bread and so on, and along with the Dulse it would be perfect on a cheese board. I’ve already added them to my Christmas Cheese Board list!

Mouse’s Favourite don’t have the biggest online presence but are a very friendly and helpful company who deserve a big audience for their incredible cheese. I know this probably sounds like a sponsored post – honestly, I just really enjoyed the cheese, and I wasn’t even a big cheese lover when I ate dairy. That’s how good it is!

You can buy their products at various festivals – I’d check the list and seek them out – or order online; there’s no online shop but you can view the products on their website and drop them an e-mail. Find their Facebook here and their website here. Have you come across Mouse’s Favourite below? Let me know if you try any of their products!