I don't know why, but I was pretty amazed at how easy it is to make cream cheese. Literally, all you need is milk and a starter. That's it! I guess part of my surprise stemmed from looking at the ingredient list of my (formerly) favorite brand. Seeing how long it was, I thought this was going to be an impossible task:
skim milk, whey, sodium tripolyphosphate, sugar, pasteurized milk and cream, salt, artifical color, xanthan gum, potassium sorbate and calioum propionate as preservatives, carrageenan, cheese culture, sodium phosphate, artifical flavor, carob bean gum, vitamin A palmitate
If there is anyone reading this blog that can correctly identify more than 6 of those words, you win a cookie. And are apparently a scientist.
So I started to research. And realized that as few ingredients as cream cheese has, there are that many more ways to make it. After careful consideration, I picked two to try. I call them in my files "quick cream cheese recipe" and "longer cream cheese recipe". Original, I know.
This weekend I decided to try the quick recipe. This involves a little bit of cooking and a little bit of draining. And some creativity with suspending thermometers in mid-air.
Ingredients:
1 gallon whole milk
1 quart cultured buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pour milk and buttermilk into a large pan and suspend the thermometer in the milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until the termperature reads 170 degrees.
note the ingenious use of kitchen twine, masking tape, and the handle of the microwave. My arts & crafts teacher would have been proud.
Keep the mixture on the heat and the temperature of the milk between 170 and 175 degrees. After 30 minutes, the mixture should start to separate into curds (the lumps) and whey (the liquid).
(A warning on this part. Make sure the thermometer is hanging quite deep in the milk mixture, unlike mine, which is only partially in. As the curds rise, they cool, which made my temperature out of whack. In fact, my thermometer didn't register much higher than 150 before the temp began to drop. I found that strange, especially since the curds were forming as the instructions said. When I stuck the thermometer down lower, suddenly the temp shot up to 195. Oops.)
Line a strainer with several layers of moistened cheesecloth and set it inside a large bowl. Then lift the curds from the milk mixture and lay them in the cheesecloth. Pour the remainder of the whey through the cheesecloth and save the whey for other recipes (buttermilk). Let curds drain at room temperature for 2 to 4 hours. You can also shorten the process by gathering up the sides of the cheesecloth and squeezing the liquid out of the ball of curds inside.
whey on the left, curds on the right
cheese draining
Remove the cheese from the cheesecloth and place in food processor with the salt. Blend until creamy. Store the cheese in small containers with tight fitting lids and refrigerate.
The cheese can also be frozen, thawed and then beaten again in blender until creamy.
I was thrilled! The cream cheese had the right texture and consistency. I was terribly eager to try it with some of my homemade rye, or homemade bagels which I will make either when the rye runs out or a brunch date compels me.
The next day when I just couldn't wait and had to scoop out just a touch for a taste test, I was, well, underwhelmed. Hold on, that was too nice. I was disgusted. It tasted, simply, like crap. I couldn't figure out what I did wrong. Did I overcook it? Did I let it drain too long?
However, I couldn't quite bear to throw it away. Don't ask me why. And I'm glad I didn't. Today, 4 days after making the cream cheese, I went back and tried it again. And you know what? It wasn't bad. Somehow it had improved. It is now tasty but not perfect, so I do plan to try the second recipe- saved of course as the "longer recipe", which involves no cooking. I will report on how that goes.
But... any thoughts on what may have gone wrong with this recipe? Overcooking? Not a good recipe in general? Or is it supposed to be that way, slowly improving with rest? I value your thoughts, oh 2 or 3 loyal readers.
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