Little Green Cheese

Cheese making at home with Gavin Webber the Cheeseman

Ask the Cheesemaker #2

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The second session in this informative series of live events, Ask the Cheesemaker #2 has been scheduled for Wednesday 23rd March 2016 at 7pm AEDST (Wednesday 23rd March @ 0800 UTC).

You can find the live link here; https://youtu.be/HGYn9zyz3tA

Or watch it in the embedded player here.

 

Please leave any questions that you have about home cheese making in the comments below before the event commences. I will endeavor to answer them during the live session.

Looking forward to answering as many of your questions as I can.

Making Mascarpone

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Mascarpone is such a simple cheese to make and should be added to your cheese making repertoire due to its versatility as a cooking ingredient.

It uses two cost-effective ingredients; Cream and Lemon Juice.  The cream needs to have a fat content of at least 35%.  I used what is known as Thickened Cream which has added gelatin, but Pure cream or heavy cream will work even better.


Very simple to make.  Here is the recipe.

Mascarpone

Makes about 1kg (2.2 lbs) of cheese

Ingredients

  • 1 litre (4 cups) Heavy Cream (at least 35% fat)
  • ¼ teaspoon Tartaric Acid in 1/4 cup water, or
  • ¼ cup lemon or lime juice, or
  • 1 teaspoon Cream of Tartar in 1/4 cup water

Note; you only need to use one type of acid.

Mascarpone ingredients

Equipment

Method

  1. Sanitise your equipment.
  2. Add the cream to the pot and heat to 91°C (196°F).
  3. Remove from heat and add acid and stir for 2 minutes.  Cream will not curdle, thicken, or split.
  4. Pour into butter muslin lined colander and allow to drain in the fridge for 12-24 hours (12 hours for a soft creamy cheese and 24 hours for a firmer cheese).
  5. Remove from fridge and butter muslin and store in the fridge for up to two weeks.  Use in any dish you desire.

I used some of the Mascarpone in a Chicken Korma curry.  It added amazing depth and flavour to this dish.

If using in a desert, I would recommend that you drain for only 12 hours to achieve a smoother consistency.  Mascarpone is meant to be a spreadable cheese, just thicker than cream and not quite as firm as cream cheese.

Enjoy this cheese and let me know if you have any success of your own.

Little Green Workshops

Bloomy Ricotta

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This cheese was a fortuitous accident!  By mistake I made a Bloomy Ricotta.

About seven weeks ago, I made normal whey ricotta from the leftover whey from two cheeses, Camembert and Queso Fresco.

Bloomy Ricotta
Bloomy Ricotta

The starter culture that I used for both was Sacco MO36R, and I added Penicillium Candidum to make the Camembert.

Once I finished making both the Camembert and Queso Fresco, I heated the remaining whey to 92°C (197.6°F) and recovered the Ricotta with 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar.  I drained using butter muslin, and added 2 teaspoons of salt to the cheese.

For those of you after the whey ricotta video tutorial; https://youtu.be/1fdYZ8T45JE

Anyway, it was too salty, so I left it in the kitchen fridge and forgot about it for 7 weeks until my wife found it and questioned me about it.

It appears that the whey still had enough P. Candidum left in it to breed in the conditions that I stored it.  I kept the Ricotta in an airtight container in the kitchen fridge at 4°C (39.2°F).

Here’s the quick video I put together to show you this creation.

 

I believe that the additional salt helped preserve the cheese better for longer.  Normally I would only add 1 teaspoon of salt to Ricotta made from 6 litres (1½ gal) of whey, but got distracted and over salted.

I am actually surprised that the P. Candidum imparted a lot of flavour into the cheese and somehow reduced the overall saltiness.  It could be my tounge playing tricks on me, but this was certainly an improvement on the original Ricotta!

So all these little events led to the creation of my Bloomy Ricotta.  Blooming marvelous I say!

If you are after supplies to recreate this cheese, please visit Little Green Workshops.

Little Green Workshops

Little Green Workshops