cheesemaking

[solipsistnation]

stophittinyrslf gave me a cheese kit for Christmas. It includes veggie rennet and a cheese press and a bunch of other stuff...

For my first attempt, I decided to make Juusota, a simple sweet cooked cheese. It would let me figure out how things work, more or less, and try to see how it all works, and would produce quick results so I could have the instant gratification required by the early stages of an obsession.

The bad news is, I set the smoke alarms off about a dozen times.

The good news is, I'm pretty sure I know what I did wrong.

The better news is that the results, while nothing a Finnish grandmother would do more than squint at suspiciously, I think, are actually quite tasty. This is kind of surprising since, after it didn't form much of a curd the way I thought it was supposed to, I kind of fudged it, squeezing and straining out the whey with cheesecloth. I then baked it in a pie tin rather than a 10x10x2 cake pan, which would have produced a thinner layer of cheese and would probably have cooked all the way through. As it is, it's soft in the middle. This isn't bad, though-- in fact, it's yummy.

Now I just need to clear the smoke from the boiled-over whey from the kitchen enough that the smoke alarm will stop going off.

(That stophittinyrslf has been salting it and eating it in big chunks is also an indication that I have succeeded in creating something tasty.)

Hooray for cheese! Especially home-made cheese!

Want to see what it looks like? Here you go!

Yum!
Yummy!

(The white part, heh, is where the brownish bits stuck to the pan and pulled off, revealing the tasty tasty white curdy bits underneath. I tried some darker parts, and it's no big loss.)

Comments

[skeets.livejournal.com]

Wow, what an awesome gift! Where would I find myself such a kit? Because, damn, I'd have some fun with that.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

www.leeners.com

or

www.cheesemaking.com

8)

[etherealfionna.livejournal.com]

Fun present!

wrt "Juusota", I'm pretty certain that that is a typo for juustoa, which simply means "some cheese". I'll check and let you know if I'm wrong (as if such a thing could happen!)

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Thanks to you, we are now referring to it as Some Cheese, as in: "Would you like *significant pause* Some Cheese?" "Why yes, thank you, I was going to have *significant pause* Some Cheese with breakfast."

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Neat. I'd always wondered how those kits would work.

[brainiac69.livejournal.com]

I've got the Ricki Carroll cheesemaking book and some supplies from www.cheesemaking.com. All are pretty solid. I've successfully made mozzarella and ricotta, both which are quite tasty. I've unsuccessfully made goat cheese...bad texture probably due to improper cooking and measurement.

My experience is that the quality of the milk has a lot to do with it...not surprising.

[sauergeek.livejournal.com]

The only time I've successfully made cheese was when I brined it. Otherwise, I get ferocious molds -- none of which look particularly edible.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Did you pasteurize your milk first yourself, and boil all the tools and things first?

[sauergeek.livejournal.com]

It's always surface mold, not interior mold, so I doubt it's pasteurization or sanitation issues. I suspect the problem is that I don't have a particularly clean place to store the cheese once I've made it.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

It looks like a cross between poundcake and foccaccia.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

It's more like a cross between cheesecake and scrambled eggs...