Kamilè Vaitkuté, Jiwei Zhou

It smells like fresh bread!

As the taste of lupin tempeh was only pleasant to Willem, we all together decided to test the mycelium growth on different materials. We collected different grains (the ones that we have a personal taste preference to) and tried to grow mycelium on them.

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Different substrate materials -


On the sheets now you can find different substrates: corn (popcorn too!), buckwheat, green peas and bulgur wheat. After the discussion with Chef Thor the other day we set ourselves a goal to make tempeh sheets as thin as possible to test the possibilities of such a flexible material. 

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Thin tempeh - Jiwei Zhou


For that reason all the ingredients were laid in thin layers in closed plastic bags. 

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All the test substrates2.jpg -


In addition to this, we continued working with the tempeh bowls. After staying in incubator for 46 hours green pea bowls surprised us with a very solid silicone like texture and abundance of mycelium which gave a nice consistent feeling to the bowl. 

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Tempeh bowl made out of boiled green peas -



The smell of the green pea bowls reminded Jiwei of the alcohol, which she found unpleasant and thought that because of it tempeh is not edible. For Kamile it smelled like a bread dough left to ferment and rise during the night. From childhood she knew that even the smell is not the best, what comes out after baking could be something worth tasting. 

So we tried to bake it in the oven. 

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Baked green pea tempeh bowls -


We found the baked green pea tempeh bowls' smell familiar to a smell of a baked bread. To be sure we let other people smell it. 

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Mascha Ihwe smells a green pea tempeh bowl - Jiwei Zhou

Mascha Ihwe: “Oh it smells like a fresh bread in the morning! And the bowl is beautiful, looks like a flower”

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Guenolé smells a green pea tempeh bowl -

Guénolé: "It smell like fresh bread! Nothing not to like about this smell."

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Antonella smells a green pea tempeh bowl -

Antonella: "I like it." 

As French and an Italian gurus (Guénolé and Antonella) approved our “bread like” tempeh we happily found our way back to the lab where we wait for the thin tempeh sheets to be ready…