Adventures in cheese making...

Since I started Rebecca Bakes Cakes I have always been up for a culinary challenge, in fact the blog was created to chart my progress to create 52 cakes in 52 weeks!  I've tried making my own crumpets, which was a complete disaster.  I've roasted my own coffee beans in a frying pan, thankfully without burning down my friends kitchen.  I've tried to overcome being sponge challenged, but still cannot for the life of me get a Victoria Sponge to rise properly...it is my cakey nemesis!  I've also tried to make my own sushi, which although a relative success, YO! Sushi need not issue a profit warning anytime soon.

Always willing to have a go at making something myself, I was chuffed to receive this fab pressie...

Now I'm not entirely new to cheese making, I did used to work for a dairy company & spent a very fun week at agricultural college in the North West, learning how to make cheese.  But that was a good few years ago & if I'm honest I seem to remember an awful lot of stainless steel kit involved.  

The kit included citric acid, organic sea salt, rennet tablets, a thermometer, muslin square & an instruction booklet.  This was going to be a far more artisan experience!  To make ricotta you start with some whole milk, add some citric acid dissolved in water & some salt.  No rennet needed for this recipe, that's for the other recipe in this kit, mozzarella.

Pan of milk (I know not that interesting!)

I heated the milk slowly & stirred occasionally to avoid scorching until it reached 185F.  By this point you can see that the curds & the whey have separated.  I took it off the heat, popped on a lid & left it to stand for 20 minutes.

Next step was to strain the whey from the curds.  I lined a colander with the muslin cloth & tipped the whole lot in.  I did this in the sink so the whey could just drain away, but I guess you could collect it & use the whey for something else?  I have no idea what mind you :-)

I gathered up the muslin into a bag, then looked for somewhere to hang it to drain!  I left it like this for around 30 minutes.  

Cautiously I opened up the muslin bag to judge my cheese making effort & felt quite chuffed to find this.  Looked pretty ricotta-ish to me!

So what to do with a kilo of ricotta?  I turned it into Jamie Oliver's Spinach & Ricotta Cannelloni, ta dah! 

 

The verdict...it was really very tasty.  It was quite rich as I used full fat milk for the cheese as per the recipe, I would be tempted to use semi-skimmed next time for a lighter flavour, but I guess you need the fat in the milk for it to do it's thing & become cheese.  It was so straight forward to make, just needed a little time & patience.  Can't wait to try the mozzarella recipe next, there's a suggestion to add chili flakes to make a spicy version, sounds good to me.  I think I may have been a mouse in a previous life...squeak!  Till next time, Rebecca x