Hericium Erinaceus I'm Sweet On You

Here I am posing with the special delivery that Randy brought me. I know what I am doing today.

Hericium erinaceus, also known as bears head, bearded tooth fungus, old man’s beard, and lions mane is such an awesome fungi. My hubby just recently realized that lions mane is one of my love languages. His eagle eye keeps spying it and he either brings it to me or tells me where I can find it.

Randy sent me this picture. Look at all that brain food!

So lately we have found ourselves with more lions mane than we can handle. I could have just dried it, but it seems a little tough after drying. It is so tender fresh. It is very versatile with a mild flavor. People say it tastes like crab, but really it has the texture of crab and with the right seasoning it seems like crab. It is a little like tofu as it can taste like whatever you add to it. With that in mind, I decided to do a little experimenting. I looked up lions mane dessert recipes and there was not a lot to find.

I did find a mushroom brownie recipe. The instructions said to add honey to the lions mane chunks after sautéing and simmer a bit then put it in a blender. So I gave it a try and the little sweet bits of fungi were pretty fun. I made my own brownie mix with a very large amount of mushroom. It was super tasty. The flavor was exactly right. The texture was more dense and spongy that a regular brownie, but it was a little like a ganache. While I was at it, I made banana muffins. I started the same with the lions mane and honey and added bananas to the blender. That by itself was delicious. It made me think I could do a LM custard or bread pudding. I kind of threw together a banana bread recipe without any real measurements (this is why I couldn’t be a scientist). The muffins tasted great buy they were dense and not at all fluffy. I made the rest of the batch into bars and added chocolate chips. I took some of the brownies and banana bars to my scientific, artist, baking chef daughter for approval and assessment. She approved. We did some speculation about leavening and what qualities the fungi brought to the recipe. I gave her a pound of lions mane to play with hoping for some new insight. She was busy so that didn’t work out.

I still have a few pounds left that I couldn’t let go bad. I thought of how creamy the cooked lions mane had been. Suddenly cheesecake popped into my head and I had to try it.

Sauté, mix, blend. Lions mane cheesecake here we come.

I decided lions mane, with all its protein, could take the place of some of the egg in the recipe and with the creaminess it could probably take the place of some of the cream cheese also. Instead of honey, I put brown sugar in the pan and let it glaze the mushrooms. I added a bit of lemon juice to replicate the tang of cream cheese. I decided to use more vanilla to boost the flavor. The texture and taster were spot on. Not so much the color though. It was a bit grey tan instead of the pretty cream you see in a regular cheesecake.

One cheesecake with a few test minis. the minis look pretty cute with a dollop of strawberry.

Nothing a little fruit topping can’t hide. My failed strawberry jam worked perfectly.

After I completed my cheesecake experiment, I still had about a cup of sautéed shrooms left over. I continued my baking mode and made some peanut butter cookies leaving out one egg. I think I cracked the code. They were pretty scrumptious.

cookie, cookie, cookie.

I know that sounds like way too much baking and WAY too much mushroom, but I like making use of what I have and finding new ways to use what is around me. With all the health benefits of lions mane it is probably a push. A little sweets, a little good stuff. Just right.