Guest chef Abigail: Making easy hard cheese

Guest chef Abigail lives on a family farm in Iowa, and having extra goat's milk prompted her to learn how to make some homemade cheese!

Abigail graciously agreed to share detailed instructions and photos with us! :)

To start, gather all your ingredients and supplies.

You will need:

1 gallon milk (we use fresh goats' milk; we've heard that cows' milk also works)
3 eggs, beaten
1 pint buttermilk (we've also used Fil milk)
2 teaspoons salt

A large stock pot
A plastic strainer
A clean linen dish towel
A cheese press (or make your own like Abigail did -- more details below)

Bring 1 gallon milk to a gentle boil. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring constantly.

Then add the buttermilk a cup at a time, stirring constantly.

Keep stirring gently as the milk seperates into whey and curds (usually within a couple minutes). Continue to stir until it looks kind of like cottage cheese with a clearish liquid.

Place a plastic strainer in the kitchen sink, lined with a clean linen dishtowel. Pour whey and curds into this and let the liquid drain away.

Gathering up the edges of the dishtowel, hold it above the sink and let more of the whey drain out for a few minutes.

Stir the salt into the semi-dry curds.

Wrap the curds back up into the dishtowel and press out the rest of the liquid. Since we don't have a "real" cheese press, we used a plastic strainer, some plates, and a couple bricks for weight (see photo). Just make do with whatever you have on hand...it's not too tricky. :-)

After a few hours, unwrap your cheese and try a slice! :-)

This makes about 1.5 pounds of cheese, depending on the percentage of milk fat in your milk. This kind of cheese doesn't melt, so it's not the best for casseroles or that type of thing. It's perfect for sandwiches, salads, crackers, and other such uses. Store cheese in the refrigerator, and freeze whatever you won't be using within a week or so.

Bio:

Abigail Paul, 27, enjoys serving her Savior and praising Him for His blessings to her. She also likes graphic design, desktop publishing, editing, HTML, writing, music, reading, scrapbooking, tatting, history, photography, and taveling. Since 1995, Abigail has published a magazine called Hidden Wisdom, which is full of encouragement to Christian families. She is also known as "Ed." (short for "editress") and is "Auntie Abby" to a number of little ones. :D

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Wow!

Submitted by Catherine on Tue, 2008-01-15 07:15.

What kind of cheese flavor does it have? Is it like a cheddar flavor or milder like provolone or mozzarella?

I have always wanted to make cheese!

Why doesn't it melt?

Interesting!

Submitted by Martha Artyomenko on Tue, 2008-01-15 12:06.

i have made alot of cheese, but not like that yet, with eggs...wow!
It would not melt because usually cheese must have rennet to melt, or so I have found. I have made a great, easy mozzerella, but you have to have rennet or junket tablets.

Thanks, Tammy - this looks

Submitted by asourceofjoy on Tue, 2008-01-15 14:13.

Thanks, Tammy - this looks great the way you have it laid out here! Makes me wish our goats would freshen soon so we can make this again...I miss it. :-)

I really have to pass the credit for this on to my sister Susanna - it was she who found the recipe and tried/tweaked it first, and that's her hands you see in these pictures. She's also the one who takes care of all our goats so we have plenty of milk to experiment with in the first place. :-)

You're right, Martha - the lack of rennet is what makes this cheese non-melting. The with-rennet recipes we've tried haven't been as simple or fool-proof as this one. Maybe you could share your mozzerella recipe sometime? We're still looking for a good one.

I'm not sure how best to describe the flavor of this cheese because it is different from most regular cheeses, yet very tasty. Definitely a mild flavor, though. One could experiment and add different spices/flavorings; we just haven't gotten that far with it yet. :-)

Simple...but fool proof?

Submitted by Martha Artyomenko on Tue, 2008-01-15 18:29.

The mozzerella recipe i have is very simple, but it is only fool proof as long as you follow the rules of cheese making I found! But even the batches we had that did not turn out perfect, like they would not stretch....those curds were the best thing to eat! I did it with cows milk though, i did have a friend with goats who made mozzerella too, and she used a very similar recipe. I would not know why it would be different.
I loved making cheese, it was so much fun! It made the best lasagna, you could make a big chunk of cheese and thing of ricotta (because when you use rennet you can also make ricotta out of the whey)! It melted so nice!
I miss my cow when i talk about this kind of stuff!

cheese recipe

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 2008-02-12 13:45.

can you share the recipe? I would love to try it.

thanks

cheese

Submitted by Anonymous on Mon, 2008-02-04 18:42.

can you use milk from the grocery store or you need to find a nice cow or goat?

Well, we've always used our

Submitted by asourceofjoy on Fri, 2008-02-15 23:05.

Well, we've always used our own fresh milk...so I'm honestly not sure if pasturized milk from the store would work or not. We did use buttermilk from the store and it was fine. Wish I could give a better answer! Perhaps you'll just have to try a small batch to experiment. :-)

Aging

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2008-02-14 03:29.

Hi Tammy ...

This is the first cheese recipe with no rennet in it.

It's verry interesting, with the fact that i'm in indonesia and it's so hard to find rennet here.

But ... since there is egg in it, can it be agged just like other cheese type ?

Regards
-bino-

No, this cheese cannot be

Submitted by asourceofjoy on Fri, 2008-02-15 23:08.

No, this cheese cannot be aged...we rather inavertantly tried that ourselves, with unpleasant results. ;-)

I'd recommend that you keep this cheese in the refrigerator after making it, and freeze whatever you won't be able to use within a week.

Hope you enjoy trying the recipe! :-D

Giving it a Shot

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 2008-04-06 18:38.

I'm giving this a shot right now.

My variables:
- Milk is storebought.
- Milk was frozen.
- Had no buttermilk, had to use the vinegar/milk method
- Only used half a gallon of milk

This gave me what looks like white curds, and took a lot longer to form the curds. I also turned off the heat when they started to form and let it sit on the electric burner for about ten minutes.

It's pressing now - we'll see how this turns out!

Making cheese!

Submitted by Tammy on Sun, 2008-04-06 23:19.

Oh, fun! Please do let us know how it turns out!! :)

Response!

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 2008-04-08 09:59.

I came out with sort of an inbetween of hard cheese and ricotta. It's not hard, like cheddar, but not mushy like ricotta. It's almost the softness of mozerella, but not nearly as smooth.

Overall, it tastes pretty good! I pressed some until it was mostly all out of whey and left the other bits with a little whey in them, and the stuff with the whey in it is a bit more tasty.

This is queso fresco

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 2008-04-20 22:07.

Your recipe is a interesting twist on queso fresco a very popular fresh Mexican cheese. It is widely available in Texas where I am from, interesting enough the eggs you put in which causes the marbling is the only real difference. very good recipe though this is an excelletn cheese for soups as it doesn't melt, also good for any mexican type dishes.

First Cheese Ever Made!

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2008-06-05 13:49.

This was the first cheese I've ever made! I done a couple things a little bit different,but nothing major that would change the recipe.
1.I used store bought whole milk,pasteurized
2.I heated it in my double boiler
3.I found out my cheesecloth was to close weaved!120t.p.i.
4.I added some "Janes Original Mixed-Up Pepper" seasoning
5.I used the cheese press I just made and 46 1/2lbs.weight
Everything went fine,but using a double boiler took a long time to heat-up,and it never did boil,got to around 191 degrees.My eggs were a little old and were also store bought,so I didn't get the darker yellow marbling,but still very nice looking.A word of caution! when the curds and whey come out of the pan and into the cheese cloth they are hot!Mine didn't drain all that well,but that's because I used a very tight weave muslin,120 threads per inch.It's in the press now,but I did taste just a little,and it was really good!Not bad for my first try! Thanks for the great tutorial,it's what I needed to get started. Darrell

Why the egg?

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2008-06-26 19:56.

What purpose does the egg serve in this process and in the finished cheese? Also, it it safe to leave the cheese out for pressing when there is egg in it? What would happen to this recipe if you leave the egg out? Will it be the same consistency? I wonder what would happen if you used kefir as the base instead of milk. Maybe you'd get a tangier, feta-type flavor? Let me know about the egg. I would like to try to make this cheese! Also, I don't have a cheese press or bricks. How much weight do I need to have on it, and how do I know it's done?

Brick weight...

Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2008-08-21 08:54.

A standard brick Weight: 5 lb (2.3 kg) 2" x 4" x 2"
She has 2 bricks there = 10 lbs.

Brings Back memories!

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 2008-07-29 16:40.

My Mom Made this cheese when we were kids, and she topped it with homemade horseradish that had beets in it. The best stuff we ever had during holidays when she served it!

Cheese

Submitted by sandraN on Sat, 2008-09-27 10:09.

I have never made Cheese before . But wold love to try. I do not have a cheese press. Can you explain the homemade cheese press? the picture has me courious!