Silken tofu?

[bmccasland]

For my up coming camping trip, I made a batch of protein bars and the recipe called for "silken" tofu. Not being a vegetarian, I'm not into the various types and apparently neither are the clientel of my local grocery store - the Winn Dixie (red-neck R us). They had firm and extra firm. So I choose "firm". My question is - What's the texture difference between the "firm" and "silken"
Could have gone to *Whole Paycheck* but didn't want to drive that far for one thing, so WD had to do.

[KnottedYet]

From what I see (and eat) here, there are two main textures of tofu at my grocery store. Silken and Cotton. Silken is very smooth and kind of like custard or jello. Cotton is lumpy (?) like pressed cheese curd that has some little airpockets in it. Or like polenta. (I know my descriptions aren't that good, but that's what the tofus make me think of)

Each comes in various firmnesses (related to how much water is in it) like soft, firm, extrafirm.

I like the silken for desserts or mixing into batters, the cotton for marinating and using like meat. Generally I choose firm or extrafirm, just cuz soft falls apart easily. Sometimes I drain/press the water out of some extrafirm cotton and then marinate it if I want to fry it like a burger.

I also really like tempeh, but that's another story...

[Eden]

Yeah - silken and firm are not too much alike.. silken should have pretty much the texture of a firm custard and firm is generally more crumbly - if you were to mash it up it would probaby end up looking more like crumbled sausage or scrambled eggs. Silken on the other hand you can put in a blender and make it completely smooth. My favorite is choclolate tofu pie - so easy - so yummy - not so guilty

put in a blender 1 block of silken tofu
1/3 cup of liquid (I've used at different times hazelnut milk, soy milk and espresso)
1 bag of chocolate chips, melted
1 tbs of honey if you need a little more sweetness

blend until smooth, pour into a graham cracker crust, chill and eat

[alpinerabbit]

Would you share your recipe? This sounds really interesting!

[KnottedYet]

Oooh, Eden! Thanks for the recipe! I wanna make that, at least the filling part with maybe some fresh strawberries or raspberries on top!

Mmmmmmm!

[Eden]

Yeah - it works nice without the pie crust too - like a firm mousse. I like to use Azumaya (sp?) tofu if I can get it because their silken is really smooth and doesn't have a lot of tofuey aftertaste.