Cream Cheese Making Recipe
General
Cream Cheese is a very popular farmhouse classic and is used in many cooking recipes and desserts as well as on toast, bread, and bagels. In the USA, it is the third most popular cheese.
Ingredients - Metric
Makes ~0.8 kg of Cream Cheese:
- 2 liters fresh cow's cream.
- 125 ml of homemade or your choice of manufactured Mesophilic Starter Culture, amount as per directions.
- Rennet, your choice of type, amount as per your experience or package directions, diluted in ~125 ml cool water.
- Optional: Flavourings.
Ingredients - American
Makes ~1.7 pounds of Cream Cheese:
- 2 US quarts fresh cow's cream.
- 4 ounces of homemade or your choice of manufactured Mesophilic Starter Culture, amount as per directions.
- Rennet, your choice of type, amount as per your experience or package directions, diluted in ~1/2 cup cool water.
- Optional: Flavorings.
Directions
- Pour cream into food grade container.
- Add mesophilic starter culture and thoroughly mix in.
- Add diluted rennet and thoroughly mix in.
- Cover and set aside to ripen for 12-15 hours at room temp (~21°C/70°F).
- Ladle the curds into a colander lined with a fine cheese cloth, set aside for 5 minutes for excess whey to drain.
- Tie the four corners of the cheesecloth together and hang above container for 6-8 hours to further ripen and drain whey.
- Discard drained whey and place the curds into a small bowl and mix to make homogeneous.
- Add salt, herbs, etc. to taste.
- Place the cream cheese into a sealable food grade container in fridge where it will firm up a little as gets cold.
- Use within 2 weeks.
Options
- Popular seasonings-flavourings added after Cream Cheese is made are stirring in:
- Salt
- Strawberry, Blueberry, Cranberry, Peaches
- Garlic and Herbs (Boursin Brand style)
- Honey and Chopped Walnuts
- Sundried Tomato
- Salmon/Lox
- Bacon Scallion
- Olive Pimiento
- Onion and Chives
- Garden Veggie (using dry vegetable soup mix)
- Jalapeño
- Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Spice
- Chocolate
Tricks & Traps
- To get drier cheese, while hanging, every ~2 hours, scrape de-whey'd drier cheese (filter cake) off of walls to allow moister curd's whey better exit route to the cloth.
- Start making cheese in evening so that ripens in stockpot overnight, can hang next morning, turn or work cheese during daytime, and making will be done in afternoon. This way you will have spare extra time in evening in case need to hang longer to get drier.
- Times above are rough and dependant on ingredients and your room temperature, cooler requires longer time, warmer less.
- When finished, little whey appearing around cheese before fully consumed is normal in non-manufactured store bought Cream Cheese.
- If using store bought cream or "Half & Half" (half cream & half milk) in North America, it is often Ultra-Pasteurized to give it a very long shelf life. Ultra Pasteurization kills most of the bad and good bacteria, this also results in a poor curd forming.
- Do not try to rush this natural process, it needs the time to develop the flavour.
