This is my experiment using raw milk and cocoa, just to compare it with John's store-bought chocolate milk method.
Ingredients:
2 1/2 gallons whole raw milk
1 cup clabber
1/2 cup baking cocoa
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablet Junket rennet, dissolved in 1/4 cup non-chlorinated cool water
Method:
1) Using double boiler method, warm milk to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Turn off heat. Keep pot of milk in double boiler.
2) Whisk clabber until thin and no clumps remain. Gradually whisk in cocoa, then sugar. Whisk into pot of milk.
3) Gently stir in dissolved rennet.
4) Cover milk pot with lid, then cover and wrap outer kettle with a towel to maintain heat as close to 80 degrees Fahrenheit as possible. Allow to age 12-18 hours to develop flavor, until it is thick like yogurt.
5) Pour curd into butter muslin-lined colander, knot corners and hang 6-12 hours until desired consistency. Occasionally scrape outer curd toward center to allow better drainage.
6) Remove from muslin and stir/knead until consistent texture throughout. Keep in refrigerator and use or freeze within 1-2 weeks.
Notes on Process:
1) My milk temperature reached 90 degrees Fahrenheit while I was whisking the clabber and cocoa together.
2) To add the cocoa to the clabber, I sifted a bit at a time over the clabber, then whisked it in. It got quite thick after adding the sugar, so I whisked in about 1 cup of warmed milk before adding it to the pot of milk.
So now I'm waiting for it to culture...
MrsKK
I'm looking forward to your results.
I have a couple chocolate cake recipes that use cocoa. The recipes start with mixing the cocoa with boiling water then add vanilla. You let this cool and then go onto making the cake. The cocoa/water mixture gets really smooth and the cocoa incorporates really well into the water. I just looked and the proportions for the angel food cake recipe I have is 1 oz cocoa to 2 oz water. I wonder is this method would work well with this type recipe. I also wonder if adding vanilla would be a good addition.
I need to find more time in my life because I really want to try this.
Deb
They do seem to always use vanilla with cocoa. I always wondered about that.
Sounds interesting Laren. Looking forward to your results! Good luck!
Thinking out loud again, but a little expresso powder enhances chocolate flavor. I'm going to have to find time for this soon. :D
Karen, looking forward to hearing/seeing results. The one I made with store bought choc milk had the sugar already in it so I was stuck. I assume you added sugar to make it more a desert cheese?
01/18/2010 Notes:
I was not able to put the curd in the cheesecloth until nearly midnight, having worked second shift yesterday. It was set nicely, with some of the cocoa having precipitated out and settled on the bottom of the pot.
At 6:30 this morning, I turned the Neuf out of the cheesecloth into a bowl and beat it until the texture and color was consistent throughout. It is a pale brown and almost has a fluffy texture at room temperature. It will be interesting to see how firm it gets when chilled.
The flavor is more of an aftertaste of chocolate. It is just barely sweet. I will probably use this to make chocolate cheesecake.
If I were to make this in the future, I think that I would blend the cocoa into a couple of cups of the milk and heat it to near boiling, as I think that would extract more of the chocolate flavor. Or, as suggested above, mix it into boiling water and allow it to cool before blending into the rest of the ingredients.
I only added 1/2 cup sugar at the same time as I added the cocoa to the clabber. Mostly because I didn't think it would taste very good if it were more bitter from the cocoa.
Sometiimes a subtle aftertaste is magic in a special dish. Congrats Karen!
I think I forgot to add the detail that this yielded 4 3/4 pounds of Neuf. I was amazed at the high yield, especially as I didn't have any extra cream to add to the milk as I've done in the past (usually about a quart of cream to 2 1/4 gallons of whole milk).
My shifts at work are really crazy right now, so I gave away some of it to friends who will be sure to use it and I froze the rest to use later. When I make cheesecake, I will post the results.
Karen, thanks for the info, I also got high yield. Guess the starter culture ate up most of the sugar you added.
My starter culture was pretty tangy, too. I froze a lot of it up in ice cube trays to use for starting future batches of cheese, but had some left so I drained it and am using it as sour cream. It has awesome flavor.
I probably could have used just 1/2 cup of clabber as my starter, though. I wasn't really thinking about it, but I normally use a full cup for culturing 5 gallons of milk.
For people who don't have access to clabber, cultured buttermilk will work equally as well.
I made chocolate cheesecake with the Neufchatel and it turned out really good. I used the recipe I altered from Tea's baked cheesecake, posted here: https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,330.msg12029.html#msg12029, (https://cheeseforum.org/forum/index.php/topic,330.msg12029.html#msg12029,) but did not marbelize it or add the extra chocolate.
As I was taking it to a supper party, I decided to make it in a 9x13 cake pan, rather than a springform pan. I used about a cup of vanilla Greek yogurt as topping, then garnished with curls of dark chocolate.
This version turned out much less rich than the original recipe, but very tasty. I think I will try dissolving the cocoa in boiling water before adding to the milk the next time I make chocolate Neufchatel, but I don't really see any need for other alterations.
I'm pretty happy with the results!
Karen, good it worked out, of course I hate pictures of chocolate cake ::).
I apologize for not getting pictures...it is already eaten. Delish, though, even if I do say so myself.
I really doubt I'm going to lose any weight before mid-March and a trip to South Carolina...
Gee I don't know Karen you look thinner to me ... ;)
Funny thing, I had somebody tell me that last week, but I gained nearly 15 pounds this fall. Not sure how that works!
Ah now that the kind of peopleyou nedd around!
Hope this isn't too late to ask on this particular recipe...but do you use Dutch or Natural cocoa??? It may seem like a silly question...however I just learned this year when I was trying a new recipe for a cake that apparently the acid or lack there of in a cakes recipe dictates the type of cocoa one *should* use. All I can say is never buy specialty cocoa from mail order and put it in a canister without labeling whether it is dutch processed (thus alkalized) or natural cocoa which is acidic. *sigh* To make matters more confusing...when I ran to grocery store to buy Dutch so I could use the specific recipe...they no longer carried it and only carried natural or European which was a blend of both worlds. LOL...and I had to learn all this the morning of my son's BD. Apparently one or the other...with or without soda or with...can produce a "soapy" tasting cake. ARGGHG! I have had enough desert disasters...I don't need another one. LOL!
Either way...I got it covered...if ya happen to know the type YOU used...I should be guaranteed success...(unless I can't use my homemade buttermilk as the clabber?)
Can anyone say teegr is a type A?
The cocoa I used is just labelled as "baking cocoa" like the Nestle's brand for cooking with, but in generic form.
I see no reason why your homemade buttermilk wouldn't work, as it is all the same organisms that make milk clabber.
Good luck and let us know how it turns out for you. I'm only getting a gallon of milk a day and between milk "thieves" and working too much, I haven't had much time for cheesemaking. I did make a batch of Colby again this week, but still have enough chocolate Neuf in the freezer for another batch of cheesecake.
I woul suspect many of us are type A's teegr or we'd be buying cheese instead of making it.
Amen to that Deb!. The real reason is when I want fresh cheese I want FRESH cheese. Is that a type A thing?
Mrs KK... I'm really liking the idea that one can freeze this as it sounds like a perfect thing for those times a babysitter for the GD is needed and Nana is too tired to figure out what to do on short notice since snackies don't hang around here too much. I can see it now...little balls of choc cheese hard frozen into "healthy" bonbons and fast to thaw.
Now all I have to do is figure out if Nestle switched to natural like Herseys did. Probably doesn't matter but after the King Arthur Baking book made me paranoid about cocoa... Unfortunately I have ALOT of black cocoa and can't figure out if it is natural or alkalized. :-\ Too bad choc gives me migraine (and I'm incapable of saying NO) or I'd just test all my cocoa making cakes just to see what the big deal was.
I've baked for 40+ years and never knew there was such a issue with cocoa!! Course I do remember being accused of using a bar of soap to grease my cake pans with once a long long time ago...Perhaps it wasn't me...it was the cocoa and the recipe didn't match.
NAw I don't think that's type A just the driving force to produce perfect cheeses all the time. I am definately a type A obsessive compusive nut case when I set my sights on a thing to the exclusion of almost all else including sleep sometimes.
Quote from: teegr on February 05, 2010, 02:55:57 AM
Now all I have to do is figure out if Nestle switched to natural like Herseys did. Probably doesn't matter but after the King Arthur Baking book made me paranoid about cocoa... Unfortunately I have ALOT of black cocoa and can't figure out if it is natural or alkalized. :-\ Too bad choc gives me migraine (and I'm incapable of saying NO) or I'd just test all my cocoa making cakes just to see what the big deal was.
I've baked for 40+ years and never knew there was such a issue with cocoa!! Course I do remember being accused of using a bar of soap to grease my cake pans with once a long long time ago...Perhaps it wasn't me...it was the cocoa and the recipe didn't match.
Without knowing the product I would imagine the Nestle is natural unless the package says Dutch. Most of the cocoa in the grocery store (in the US) is natural. The king arthur black cocoa is dutch processed. Here (http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/items/black-cocoa-16-oz) is the King Arthur webpage for the Black Cocoa. I use the King Arthur Double Dutch Dark which is a blend of the dark & the regular dutch. It is awesome stuff.
Quote from: DeejayDebi on February 05, 2010, 02:26:19 AM
I woul suspect many of us are type A's teegr or we'd be buying cheese instead of making it.
;D :D
Thanks Deb, the web page also says...LOL
Note: For best results, use black cocoa in combination with natural or Dutch-process cocoa.
SOOOOO I'll just use a little of both and that should take care of any issue with the ph I guess. Interesting site for info about diff types of cocoa.
http://www.baking911.com/pantry/chocolate_types.htm (http://www.baking911.com/pantry/chocolate_types.htm) if ya look under cocoa (halfway down page) you can see the info concerning Ph and types of cocoa. Not all natural cocoas say they are so on label and apparently not all dutch ones either...so you have to look at the ingredient label.
I use my black cocoa mostly for rye or pumpernickel bread since that is what I eat the most...No doubt chocolate Neuf will taste great on it....and be better than eating choc cake....almost?
Quote from: teegr on February 05, 2010, 08:24:10 PM
I use my black cocoa mostly for rye or pumpernickel bread since that is what I eat the most...No doubt chocolate Neuf will taste great on it....and be better than eating choc cake....almost?
Sure is in my book! I love pumpenickel bread but don't much care for chocolate cake.
do you add cocoa to your pumpernickel?? I kind got partial to it...although not many recipes have cocoa in it. My Heidelberg rye that I have made for 40 years is my fav black rye...I then us that bread which is dense to make crostini or crackers...out of 1 loaf and eat the other one. Then I eat neuf on my black rye "crackers". I know MRS KK Choc Neuf would taste really good on any choc rye. Planning to try a small amount of this choc Neuf cause she says it frezzes well.. YUMMMMM!!
Well got to get to sleep soon as tommorow is a cheese day (hoping son brings me that press he said he built.) or I'll have another undrpressed Gouda..but I do best I can with what I have. LOL
Yes, it did freeze well - I thawed a container to make my chocolate cheesecake about 3 weeks ago. It was just a week after making the cheese, so not sure if time in the freezer would affect anything, as long as it is 6 months or less, at a guess.
I did thaw it in the refrigerator and had to stir/knead it when it was thawed to get it back to a smooth consistency. It still tasted great and had good texture.
teegr - yes I add hershey coco powder - it's actually a Russian rye - my favorite since I was a kid.