Little Green Cheese

Cheese making at home with Gavin Webber the Cheeseman

How to make Ostkaka – Swedish Cheese Cake

By Leave a Comment

Time for a curd recipe! Ostkaka would have to be the nicest dessert that I’ve made using curds! Thank you, Sweden.

Ostkaka aka Swedish Cheese Cake is delightfully simple to make if you have some rennet handy. A great winter warmer for those colder months and a good way to use up a lot of milk quickly! Whilst this is not exactly the traditional recipe, it was what I had at hand and it worked perfectly.

Ingredients

  • 4 Litres / 1 Gallon Raw Milk or Pasteurised/Unhomogenised Milk
  • ½ tsp (2.5ml) single strength rennet in ¼ cup of water
  • ¾ Cup All-purpose flour
  • 1 Cup Sugar
  • 4 Large Eggs
  • 1 Cup Whipping Cream (35% fat)
  • 50g / 1.76 oz Ground Almonds
  • Jam or berries to serve.

Method

  1. Save one cup of cold milk from the total to mix with the flour to make a soft paste.
  2. Dissolve rennet in non-chlorinated water.
  3. Heat milk to lukewarm, 32°C / 98°F.
  4. Remove from heat, add the soft paste to warm milk and stir in dissolved rennet. Stir for no more than one minute; cover and let stand until firm, about one hour.
  5. Break up the milk mixture and remove the whey. Do not make the curd too dry and treat it with gentle hands.
  6. Preheat oven to 200°C / 400° F.
  7. Mix eggs, sugar and whipping cream.
  8. Add cream mixture to curd, stir well and bake at 200°C / 400° first 30 minutes and reduce to 165°C / 325°F for about 30 more minutes. Use a Pyrex-type baking dish.
  9. Ostkaka should be brown on top and served warm.

Watch the video here; https://youtu.be/dI11NiLryyA

Ostkaka reminded me of bread and butter pudding that my mother used to make. Pleasant memories of my childhood. Everyone in our family enjoyed a hearty slice for dessert.

For more cheese and curd recipes, check out the Recipe video playlist on my YouTube channel.

How to Make Saganaki Cheese

By Leave a Comment

Saganaki cheese is so simple to make!

1. Acquire some Graviera, Kefalograviera or Kefalotyri (or make them yourselves, see below). Cut into 2.5 cm or 1 inch slices.
2. If the cheese is dry, then dip it in water, then coat the cheese in flour and shallow fry in olive oil over medium heat.
3. Turn once when browned on the bottom. Make sure they don’t stick to the pan.
4. Serve hot with a squeeze of lemon. Enjoy!

Saganaki Cheese Video

Watch the video below for more information; https://youtu.be/OU-Q3diWGRs

Now, being the competent cheese maker that I am, it would be amiss of me not to share the methods for making a couple of the cheeses that are used for this wonderful dish.

[Read more…]

Difficulty Heating Milk for Cheesemaking?

By Leave a Comment

Previously I’ve used a double boiler method for heating milk during the cheese-making process. It was hard work maintaining the correct temperature and there was always some drift up or down the scale which is not ideal. Additionally, it does not induce the state of calmness that one needs to maintain during a session.

Although I’ve been making cheese at home since 2009, I cannot honestly say that I’d perfected a method of heating milk during cheese-making and keeping it at a constant temperature during the entire process using a double boiler until now. Well, now I believe I’ve cracked the code. I use a precision cooker!

Precision Cooker is a Useful Tool!

I recently discovered an easy method of heating the milk using my kitchen sink and a precision cooker (aka Sous Vide cooker). I was so excited that I made a video about the entire process. https://youtu.be/uDCTTJjVjyQ

Perfect, maybe?

Now, is it perfect? Well, as perfect as it can be for the home cheesemaker without costing the earth. I tend to set the temperature one or two degrees celsius higher than required. This is due to the heat loss from the metal sink and convection lag between the water bath and the milk. It’s not an issue and is easy to account for during the process.

Also, the divider between the two sinks is just narrow enough to screw the precision cooker to without it moving. Our sink only holds my 15 Litre / 4 gallons stockpot with enough water flow to surround it. If I need to make a larger batch of cheese, I would get a bigger pot and use a large plastic tub to hold the water. To aid in water flow underneath, I sit the pot on a trivet.

Recommendations

Originally I purchased an Anova brand precision cooker. It worked okay but emitted a high-pitched whine that was irritating beyond words. It also came across in the audio of my videos, so it was a show stopper for me and I had to stop using it.

However, I then found the Inkbird ISV-200W Wi-Fi Precision Cooker. No noise and about 2 times cheaper than the Anova precision cooker. It has all the same features and works as expected without any fuss. I also control mine via the Android/iOS app that you can download for free.

It can be set to Celcius or Fahrenheit and you can get the Australian/New Zealand ISV-200W version here or the US/Canada ISV-200W version here.

I’ve used mine for about two years now without issues and highly recommend it to anyone wanting to take home cheese making to the next level with this set-and-forget heating tool!

LIKE WHAT YOU'VE READ OR HEARD?

I have read and agreed to your Privacy Policy

DISCLAIMER: Links included in this post may be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you! Thank you for supporting my work.

Little Green Workshops