Okay I haven’t made any cheese yet but I went to a cheesemaking presentation today at a How To Cook, a store on the Sunshine Coast of Australia that offers cooking and cake decorating classes. Sasha from Mad Millie, a New Zealand company that’s started started selling their products in in our area. Mad Millie makes cheesemaking kits that allow anyone to make tasty cheese in their own kitchen.
Beginners should start with fairly simple cheese like feta or ricotta (or both). I can’t wait to give it a try.
Here’s a video by Mad Millie showing how easy it is to make feta cheese at home. It IS time consuming but I know I’ll have a big smile on my face when I serve my first cheese to friends.
It does look fairly simple, doesn’t it? The most difficult part is getting the milk to the proper temperature and I figure I can read. Let me know if you’ve made cheese at home and would recommend it to others.
This looks like it might be fun. Does it smell? I know some cheese does and I’ve never tried making cheese but felt like it might have an odor.
Martha
Hi Martha, thanks for the comment. The cheese we made didn’t smell. There might be fresh cheese that has a strong smell but I don’t know of it. 🙂 Aged cheese that’s been innoculated with bacteria can get pretty whiffy.
world’s easiest ricotta recipe: take 2 cups of full cream milk, add 2 cups of clean seawater in a pot and bring to a boil. Boil 2 mins, turn off heat, strain whey off through a new Chux cloth (washed first) or some cheesecloth or a clean tea towel until firm. Crumble, chill, eat! Can use a little lemon or lime juice to replace seawater. Easy to turn it into feta: drain 24 hours, patted into ball shape. Put in a container larger all around than the cheese, fill with clean seawater, put a lid on and store in fridge 2 days before eating. Will keep for months if you keep changing the water weekly. If too salty, soak in milk for a while before serving. Keep some whey to start the next ricotta. I always have a 2 cup jar of whey in our yacht’s fridge
It reminded me how recently I was at my favourite cheese shop in Paris and bought one of those wonderful goat cheeses. With the fromager we had a long talk about what Europe does to our cheese-makers and more generally producers.. .Just the goatcheese section!.It reminded me of one of the farmers at Deauvilles open-air market who used to sell the best chickens on earth and the most wonderful fresh eggs..A couple of years ago to follow European guidelines or whatever they call them he had to buy a refrigerated if he wanted to go on selling his wonderful farm-made butter and double cream.
Making cheese is high on my todo list, re-watching Will Studd on old Cheese Slices is inspiring me.
Hi Maureen,
Just try saying ‘Mad Millie makes cheesemaking kits’ 10 times in quick succession after a few drinks.
Personally, I would love to try my hand at making some cheese, the stuff in the supermarkets is either getting more tasteless or more expensive every time I buy some. The only downside seems to be the time involved.
I’ll have to see if there are any cheesemaking kits available locally. Thanks for the inspiration.
LOL
I’ve made some wonderful feta that I marinated and it was great at the Christmas party.