Fancy a Bit of Cheese?


What to do when you are off from work looking after a sick wife and child? ....And have no beer making plans....

#1 - Make sure they are resting comfortably.
#2 - MAKE CHEESE !

I received a Mad Millie beginners cheese making kit for my birthday recently and decided today was the day to give it a whirl.

For my first cheese I decided on what looked to be the easiest!

Whole Milk Ricotta
Should make around 400gm
Time: about 1 hour

Ingredients:
  • 2 litres full cream milk - I used Maleny Dairys Guernsey Milk which I found in Coles and has got to be the best tasting milk I have had in years. It even had a cap of cream on top!
Greatest milk ever?
  • 1 tsp Citric Acid 
  • 2 tsp Cheese Salt 


Method:
Getting the milk to 95ºC
  1. Sanitise everything that touches the milk.
  2. Add milk to a large pot 
  3. Add 2 tsp salt  - (I like it salty things, hope 2 tsp is enough!)
  4. Heat the milk slowly stirring well to prevent scorching.
  5. Continue heating to 95°C then turn the heat off and stir in the citric acid solution, it should curdle almost instantly.
  6. Let the curds rest for 30-45 min. 
  7. Ladle the Ricotta curds gently into the basket. Let the curds drain for 15 min up to several hours. I let it drain for 1 hour before chilling.
  8. Turn out of the basket and eat!
  9. Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container for 10 days.

Here is the final product - it tastes wonderful, completely different to the boring store bought ricotta, this is going on a pizza for dinner tonight!


  
I have grand plans for Brie and Blue cheese now, there might be a bit of a fight for the fermentation fridge soon...

Cheers


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