John's Cheese #015 - Cream Cheese #2

[LadyLiberty]

I hope it works for you, but I have had no luck with ultra-pasteurized milk.  Funny, all the goat milk and organic milk I see in the stores is ultra-pasteurized.  I wonder if all those people paying that high a price for milk know what they are buying. 

That's true of many of the organic brands because they aren't local.  The farm has to ship them long distances so they ultra-pasteurize for shelf life reasons.  Of course, even though it's organic, after ultra-pasteurizing, the milk has no nutritional value anymore, so I really don't see the point in buying ultra-pasteurized organic milk.

[Likesspace]

John,
I have a question concerning this style of cheese....
Does this have a flavor that's typical of store bought Philadelphia Cream cheese?
The reason that I ask is that my wife makes a cheese ball that never fails to get rave reviews and one of the main ingredients is Philly Cream cheese.
I have a racquetball tournament coming up in March and I have volunteered a nice cheese platter for the event. I would like to have my wife make her cheese ball with both cream cheese that I've made and a homemade colby/jack in place of the cheddar that is traditionally used.
Of course I want everyone at the tournament to enjoy my cheeses and my wife doesn't want her cheese ball to be less than it usually is.
Any information you can give me about this recipe would be greatly appreciated.
By the way......
The planned cheese platter at the tournament is:
Colby
Swiss
Stirred Curd Cheddar
Smoked Farmhouse Cheddar
Stilton
Gouda
Pepper Jack
Colby/Jack
Provolone
Cheese Ball
One of the tournament players is a major cheese lover so it's important to me that this tray goes over well.
He has said on numerous occasions that no matter what else is offered, when it comes to a snack he will choose cheese every time.
Hopefully I will get good reviews on my homemade cheeses.
I don't know why it's so important since I really love the taste of my cheeses.
Regardless, it is important that I get a good "grade" on the varieties I share.

Dave

[Tea]

I have made the cream cheese recipe on a number of occassions and I prefer it over the philly brands.  I have made cheese cakes, dips, and used it is cooking with much success.

I would suggest that you do a trial run first at home, and see what you think.  I have always used a pure cream though, and not a whipping or UHT cream.
Good luck.

[Likesspace]

Tea,
Thanks for the reply and the information.
My first cheese was a cottage cheese and since that time I've been making nothing but hard cheeses.
This will be a first for me and honestly I'm pretty excited about giving it a try.
I might just give this a go tomorrow afternoon and let my wife see how it works out.
I've got a 6 lb. wheel of colby/jack so I can certainly allow myself to sample a bit of it before the tournament.
Thanks again, Tea..

Dave

[Tea]

Keep us informed, and a recipe for the cheese balls wouldn't go astray either, nudge nudge

[Cheese Head]

Dave, Tea makes way more Cream Cheese than me, but the ones I've made have way more flavor than store bought cream cheese. Also, I like Neufchatel Cheese as same style as Cream Cheese but made with whole milk and thus way less % fat content. It also tastes way better than store bought Kraft Neufchatel. FYI, I've built Cream Cheese and Neufchatel Recipe webpages using my experience and many of ideas from Tea.

Tea, here in US in stores we can only get Ultra-Pasteurized "Whipping Cream" or "Half & Half" which is half cream and half milk, at least I've never seen "Cream" in a store. I've assumed that whipping cream is just a description, like "Whipping Style Cream or "Cream, that could be used for whipping", or am I missing something?

[Tea]

Oh ok I didn't realise that you couldn't get pure cream there.  Here whipping cream has thickeners and gums etc add to help with the whipping, while the pure cream has no additives.  I did post a pic somewhere of the two types that I can get.

Half and half would be a good choice for making cream cheese, would it not?

[Likesspace]

Would half and half work, and is it ultra pasteurized?
If so, I would probably rather give it a try than whipping cream.
If it won't work I will probably go with the  Neufchatel recipe since it doesn't appear that whipping cream works all that well.
Tea, I will post the recipe for my wife's cheeseball.
It's very easy to make and is the result of her and my sister in law playing around in the kitchen one Christmas day.
That was several years ago and now it's mandatory that we have one of them each Christmas eve.
Thanks to both of your for the information and please let me know if you think half and half wold work. I'd like to give one a try next weekend and see how it works in the cheeseball recipe.

Dave

[LadyLiberty]

Would half and half work, and is it ultra pasteurized?
If so, I would probably rather give it a try than whipping cream.
If it won't work I will probably go with the  Neufchatel recipe since it doesn't appear that whipping cream works all that well.
Tea, I will post the recipe for my wife's cheeseball.
It's very easy to make and is the result of her and my sister in law playing around in the kitchen one Christmas day.
That was several years ago and now it's mandatory that we have one of them each Christmas eve.
Thanks to both of your for the information and please let me know if you think half and half wold work. I'd like to give one a try next weekend and see how it works in the cheeseball recipe.

Dave

I bet half and half would work.  It worked great for my mascarpone, and that's not all that different from cream cheese.  I was able to get it pasteurized, not ultra-

[Cheese Head]

Tea, thanks, always assumed "Whipping" Cream was just cream for whipping, good point I'll check the back of package next time.

Dave, as LL just said, yep, in my both my first batch and second batch of Cream Cheese making I used UP Half & Half, worked well!

All Half & Half I've found here is UP.

[Likesspace]

Joy and John, thanks to your both.
I'll have to see what type of half and half is available here.
Hopefully I can find the pasteurized only, but if UP works then that's good enough.
I've decided that I need to start playing around a little in the soft cheese world.
I've been so focused on hard cheese that I've forgotten about this segment.
Just today my youngest daughter told me I needed to get good enough (at cheesemaking) to make cottage cheese. It's her favorite so that's a bit of an incentive for me. :-)
Thanks for the information.
I'll give this a try Friday night/Saturday and let you all know how it goes.
Thanks again....
Dave

[Cheese Head]

Dave, to be fair I didn't get great curd sets with the UP Half & Half, see pictures, but it isn't critical. Basically it's an organic flavour based on time, in my opinion the rennet just enables faster whey drainage. Thus I normally have to scrape the drier curds off the inside wall of the bag to enable the moister curds to shed more whey, otherwise at the end of the recommended time my cheese is still too moist in middle.

Maybe me using UP and getting poorer curd set and Tea using just pasteurized is the reason we are getting different results as she has said that she doesn't need to do my trick, just gives the bag a squeeze every now and then.

[LadyLiberty]

Joy and John, thanks to your both.
I'll have to see what type of half and half is available here.
Hopefully I can find the pasteurized only, but if UP works then that's good enough.
I've decided that I need to start playing around a little in the soft cheese world.
I've been so focused on hard cheese that I've forgotten about this segment.
Just today my youngest daughter told me I needed to get good enough (at cheesemaking) to make cottage cheese. It's her favorite so that's a bit of an incentive for me. :-)
Thanks for the information.
I'll give this a try Friday night/Saturday and let you all know how it goes.
Thanks again....
Dave

How did it got, was this your neufchatel?

[Likesspace]

Joy..
This is the Neufchatel...
I did not use half and half ummm....well.....errr..mainly because I was too lazy to look for it in our local supermarket.
Okay, that's not exactly true......
It's not that I was too lazy to look because I actually just asked my wife to pick up a gallon of whole milk for me to make the cheese. To be "too lazy" I would have actually had to set foot in the supermarket, myself.   :-)
Since this was such a hit with my middle daughter I'll have to make it again, trying the half and half. This girl can eat cream cheese like it's the finest cut of steak so for her to say the flavor was perfect was quite a compliment.

Dave

[LadyLiberty]

Joy..
This is the Neufchatel...
I did not use half and half ummm....well.....errr..mainly because I was too lazy to look for it in our local supermarket.
Okay, that's not exactly true......
It's not that I was too lazy to look because I actually just asked my wife to pick up a gallon of whole milk for me to make the cheese. To be "too lazy" I would have actually had to set foot in the supermarket, myself.   :-)
Since this was such a hit with my middle daughter I'll have to make it again, trying the half and half. This girl can eat cream cheese like it's the finest cut of steak so for her to say the flavor was perfect was quite a compliment.

Dave

Oops, my bad.  Tom homebrewed a nut brown ale and er... it's really really good, and er, well I must have missed something... er.