Making Something out of Nothing

I knew from the beginning that this whole cheesemaking thing would add up to alot of cheese. And when it's just not nice enough to even share but not bad enough to toss, that adds up to alot of cheesy foods.

Case in point, farmhouse cheddar #2. (It's cousin, farmhouse cheddar #1 met with an early demise. Your condolences are appreciated.)

From this I decided to make some cheddar biscuits and something else...but what? Coincidentally, I had recently received a book called The Cheese Bible from a dedicated fan and a good deal of that book contains recipes. Perfect...cheese sables it is!

The biscuits were inspired by Baking with Julia, though it would behoove me to find a recipe that actually contains cheese for future experiments.

And perhaps I should add that it might be good if I had the right kind of flour. It was too late (as in, I was at the point in my day where returning to the grocery store was no longer an option) before I realized that I only had bread flour. Bread flour has a higher protein content, so it tends to make things that aren't actual breads a bit tougher.


The biscuits turned out pretty well. They weren't tender, light, and flaky (as biscuit should be so you're probably thinking, "How can that be good?") but they made an okay sandwich component. They tasted nice, as far as the cheddar and chive combo, though the cheddar flavor was surprisingly subtle.


The cheese sables were pretty (dressed a few up with cayenne, some with black pepper) and they had nice flavor, but they were DRY. Seriously, they were choking material. I don't know if that's attributed to the bread flour or the recipe itself. Hmmm...must experiment further.

The First Time Always Hurts

I made my very first batch of cheese on May 14 of this year, a 1# wheel of organic raw milk farmhouse cheddar. (Because I chose to use raw milk, it was recommended that the cheese age for a minimum of 2 months.) The following weekend I made my second batch using the same exact recipe only with different milk, an organic pasteurized milk. My goal was to compare the resulting flavor of a cheese based solely upon its milk content. If only that were the case; I forgot about the human error part.

The first foray into the cheese making process, I wasn't familiar with just how quickly the temperature of milk could rise. Or for how long it would be able to hold a temp, no matter how wrong. And not only that, but when I made the brilliant decision to create half recipes rather than full ones I think I split the bag of cultures unevenly (which undoubtedly created a vast difference in the two cheeses). Nonetheless by the end of my maiden voyage, I thought it was all pretty straightforward. I amaze myself sometimes with such logic.

Then came the second attempt. I suddenly had become an expert, and while I kept my temperatures down to the desired level (mostly anyway), I moved things along a bit too quickly when it came time to bring the curds from 90 to 100 degrees. This resulted in a greater mass of curds that were particularly softer than the first batch. These curds seemed to be holding on to too much whey (once more, I had become an expert) and were difficult to press.

I was sure that the first cheese would champion the second. There goes that human error part again. Fast forward: it is now two months later and time for the cheeses to be enjoyed. Well, sort of.

The first cheese had an odor emanating from the scored wax. That can't be good. And it wasn't. For the first time it genuinely occurred to me that I'm dealing with a living product. It has the ability to "do things," (I just don't know what yet). There was an air pocket, a big one, and little bubbles everywhere else. I didn't do that...IT did it. I was almost afraid to taste it, but I was compelled to; it was sour and off. At that point it was only good for a photo op. The second wheel had a much more pleasant odor, a texture that looked somewhat like cheese should, and it even tasted okay (though it was still pretty sour). This cheese was destined to become something greater. Well, something edible.

So what did I learn?

I have no idea. I can probably guess that temperature played a major role in the outcome, but that's about as far as I'm willing to go. I did learn that I need to take better notes. (I'm wondering what exactly I thought I was trying to communicate to future generations of cheesemakers with my little journal. It was like trying to read transcripts of a broken conversation out of context.) I also learned that I need to make more soft cheeses, those have been easier and much more delicious so far. As for the rest, the firmer of the craft, I will cheese press on. I'm not afraid of mistakes, I figure I'll just get more of the experience I need to make great cheese. (Though, if it KEEPS happening, I might swear off dairy forever. Kidding.) All in all, not bad for a first time.

The Cheese Did Not Fail Me; I Failed the Cheese

Part 2 of a 39-part series.

When life gives you sour milk, you make cheesecake..?

Well, when Jasmine goes to the store and mistakenly buys Ultra-Pasteurized milk, that's what she does. As any fellow cheesemaker might know, UP milk is the devil. Ultra-Pasteurizing milk brings it to such extreme temperatures during the process that the proteins become denatured and therefore unsuitable for cheese making (i.e. the milk won't coagulate).

After about 2 hours of waiting for my Gouda to become something less like milk and more like cheese ("Hmmm, that's strange,") I realized my amateurish error. I decided to hang the barely-coagulated curd in butter muslin, thinking I could do something with it (see Part 1 of this series). The next day, I rustled up some graham crackers and butter and began working on a pair of springform pans; crushed the crackers, pressed two beautiful crusts and proceeded to mix the filling. Then I tasted the cheese.

Wait, something's out of order.

It was sour; and the more I tasted it, it was not just sour but bitter. "Hmmm, I don't know," I kept telling the clabbered mass, expecting it to beg me for a chance. Eventually, it did. So I added sugar and more sugar. And well if you can't beat 'em, join 'em: I added Key lime juice (the milk had the sour-bitterness of citrus without the flavor). Then more sugar...and sweetened condensed milk...and Meyer lemon juice. There wasn't room for the sink.

I wasn't convinced.

So I let it sit. Truth be told, I just couldn't get to it for a few days, so it had to. But strangely enough, days later the sour-bitter mellowed. It was ready to take its new form. I added eggs, more Key lime juice (that had faded a bit, too), and a touch of vanilla. Into the pan went the filling, and into the oven went the pan.

Over an hour later...

[It turns out I still don't know how to use my oven, so it may have been an hour...or more...it was supposed to be only 50 minutes, or so I thought when I "turned off" the oven to let the cheesecake cool in the warmth of the oven (huh?). I kept checking on it, and it kept getting bigger and eventually I figured out I had not actually turned off the oven, but merely made the motions to do so with no follow-through. Since this particular goof worked in my favor, I'll end this tangent.]

...the first one emerged. It was quite lovely. The second followed suit. Probably some of the most aesthetically pleasing cheesecakes I've ever made. Technically, this isn't even cheesecake, it's whole-milk cake. No cream or cream cheese (so it's really diet cheesecake). I made a smaller yet taller one with a chocolate crust, and a wider more shallow one with a cinnamon graham crust. The short round won. It was much more dense and probably closer to actual cheesecake, though both had a somewhat grainy texture reminiscent of ricotta, which makes sense considering the ingredients. Although I have to wonder if lower heat in the oven might have prevented such a result. And while it just wasn't cheesecake, it was a delightfully tasty failure.

Adventures in Cheesemaking

Somehow, an obsession has bloomed.

"I want to make cheese," I said.

A cabinet full of equipment, a freezer full of cultures, and a dorm fridge cheese cave later, I have become a curd nerd.

Just as I began to tackle the world of cheese, to merely scratch the waxed surface, I realized there are very few resources out there for the home cheese maker. Those that are out there are good ones; I couldn't have embarked on my quest without them. But I want more. I want a recipe for Queso Cotija!! I must learn the ways of Burrata! I need to experience Gruyere!

And here I am, hoping to connect with others having the same basic needs: all things cheese.

With love, in curds.