She’s of the girl variety and completely awesome even though she was up from 1am – 4:30am last night. *sigh* Look at that face! Yes, you may have a pony….

Other than that completely consuming pastime, I’ve been ramping up my freelance work and, well, that’s pretty much all the time I have. I have missed cheesemaking, though. So, when a publisher offered to send a book to review with recipes, I said, “yes, please!”

I got Janet Hurst’s Homemade Cheese and in between naps and feeds, dug in. It’s a lovely book in full color with chapters about cheesemaking, the different components of cheese, interviews with cheesemakers and recipes with gorgeous photos of farms, animals, cheeses and  dishes made with those cheeses — positively mouthwatering! I figured this was a good opportunity to get the women of FUCheese together and try one of the recipes.

We chose halloumi. If you’ve had halloumi, you’ve probably had it fried — it excels at this! It won’t fully melt but gets warm and bubbly and lightly toasted on the outside. It’s perfect on its own or in a sandwich or on a salad. Major plus for this recipe is that it looked very easy: 1/2 gallon of milk, rennet and salt were all that was needed.

Image from Pease Pudding who also has a halloumi recipe!

A couple things stood out in this recipe — one, it required the milk to only come to a fairly low temperature, 86°. That took no time at all, excellent! Two, it required a lot of rennet — we made a double batch so added 1 tsp of rennet. I feel like most of our other recipes have required much less. Lastly, what really made this stand out were the instructions to return the drained curds to the whey for a second heating. Interesting!

Well. Things did not turn out well, actually. After setting with the rennet for 30 minutes we tested for a clean break. Nope. Just the barest hint of firmness. We entertained ourselves with other things (involving beer and grilled cheese… more on that later) and waited another 30 minutes. Hmph. Slightly firmer. We re-read the recipe — how was the cheese supposed to sit? We had moved it off the burner and covered the pot. We consulted another cheese book on their recipe for halloumi — this one stated that it should sit at temp for the 30 minutes. We took the milk’s temp and it was in the high 80s still. We waited some more. No clean break, not really. We set it aside and pondered (and there was more beer and grilled cheese). We decided to warm it up some more. We quickly overheated it to around 95° and then set it aside. A total of about 3 hours later and you could tell it was firming, there was a definite sense of a clean break but just no way that this curd could be cut in a way that resembled “1/2-inch cubes.”

After the ladies went home, I ladled out the curd and set it to drain. It was really loose and just didn’t feel like it would knit at all. There was curd all the way to the bottom of the pot but it didn’t seem like it was going to come together and I couldn’t see any success in re-heating the curd in the leftover whey. So, I threw in the towel and dumped it. We’ve never done that!

So, I have some thoughts on this recipe….

In consulting some other recipe sources I found one that suggested adding mesophilic starter and another that suggested adding yogurt with live cultures. This takes it out of the realm of the dead simple cheese but these additions may give it more firmness and stickiness — halloumi is meant to be a firmer cheese. Another consideration is my rennet. If I can find the time, I’m going to test it to see if it’s still doing what it’s supposed to be doing. I admit, it is pretty old. So, even though we did ultimately get curd, it wasn’t firm enough — maybe my rennet has lost its oomph. Another recipe I consulted dissolved the rennet in much less water — 1/2 tsp vs 1/4 cup.

I really want to try to make this again as it looks like one of those fantastic recipes that gets you from milk to cheese in no time flat. Plus, halloumi is delicious! So, we’ll make another go of this one for sure. And given all these variables, I’m not ready to write off the recipe yet. Hopefully we can revisit this sooner than a year from now.

Anyway, do check out Hurst’s book — I think it is a really fantastic overview book that gives you a little taste of everything. I think it would be a great gift book for the cheese lover in your life as the information is really accessible and the photos are so delectable and inspiring. Plus, there’s a recipe for Devonshire Cream!

Homemade Cheese by Janet Hurst
available from Amazon, of course!

Hubs was out with co-workers and I had the evening to myself plus I had just accomplished a small milestone so I was in the mood to celebrate and in no mood to cook. I’d been saving since last weekend a 6 oz. delectable puck called Seastack from Mt. Townsend Creamery — they are located north of Seattle on the Olympic Peninsula. I got a taste of it at the Ballard Farmer’s Market the day after the cheese fest and instantly opened up the wallet. It’s a soft-ripened cow’s milk rolled in a vegetable ash.

I hunted through my fridge and cabinets and came up with some walnuts and a handful of nearly overripe strawberries. Then, to make more of a meal of it, I pulled out a pear (also nearly overripe), made a paltry salad and grabbed a beer, Widmer’s 09 Belgian Style Ale — not bad. I grabbed the radio for “This American Life” and headed out to the backyard. Which looks like this (note: new plants to be planted in the background… tomorrow, I hope!):

It was all really satisfying. The cheese is just as wonderful as when I first sampled it. Creamy and a bit runny at the edges with a slightly firm but very edible rind. It also had very slight undertones of fresh grass from the cow but also had that nice touch of blue notes coming from the vegetable ash which I think is one of my latest favorite things.

And now I’ve got to keep an eye open for Mt. Townsend Creamery cheeses here in Oregon as I also took away from the Ballard market a wedge of their Trailhead Tomme which me and the husband polished off right quick. It’s a good all-around cheese that does seem perfect for a hike. It really reminded me of a cheese that I ate a lot of and loved in Italy a couple summers ago — a light, very slightly nutty cheese with a few air bubbles scattered throughout. In Italy, our host called it “nostrana” which means ‘ours.’ So, it was their local, everyday cheese which tasted perfect on a baguette with a bit of butter and some fresh tomato and a shake of pepper. And that’s exactly how we ate up the Trailhead in addition to just cutting off slices and enjoying the flavor. Two thumbs up!

We decided to give mascarpone a go along with another batch of yogurt – who knew they were so closely related?  We did two batches of mascarpone, both from Ricki Carroll’s book.  One used a packet of direct-set creme fraiche starter and the other with tartaric acid.  Each of these recipes was very easy and something that could be tackled in your home kitchen in a few hours.  The mascarpone made with culture required you to heat the milk to 86 degrees and then let sit for 12 hours.  It can be drained in the refrigerator for a few more hours if a thicker consistency is wanted.  The mascarpone with tartaric acid required a 185 degree initial temperature before adding a 1/8-1/4 teaspoon of tartaric acid (I added a little over 1/8 of a teaspoon).  Once the tartaric acid has been mixed in thoroughly it is set to drain in a colander for 1 hour.  I actually let it drain for about 4 hours.

The results, while successful in both recipes, were clearly vastly different from each other.  The mascarpone with culture came out looking and tasting like mascarpone cheese that I’ve bought at the store.  It had a thicker, cream cheese consistency with that delicious tart yogurty like tang.  A much richer taste overall then the mascarpone with tartaric acid.   The tartaric acid mascarpone came out much more liquidy – although this might have been remedied if I’d let it drain even longer than I did.  While the flavor was fresh and pleasant it was fairly bland and still tasted very much like heavy fresh cream.

* * *

Mascarpone Meets Spring!

Take one chocolate panini from Portland Pearl Bakery sliced, slice fresh strawberries and sprinkle with a little sugar, spread mascarpone onto chocolate panini and layer with sliced strawberries.  Easy and supremely delicious.

For those interested in making it a bit more complicated might I suggest sprinkling the strawberries with a little high quality balsamic vinegar or stirring in a little vanilla with the mascarpone – or both if you are feeling fancy.

Even just the basic recipe made a delicious treat after a long day of work and had the benefit of feeling like a splurge without all the effort that that usually requires.

* * *

Making Tiramisu

Amanda here — with my share of mascarpone, I had in mind to make the tiramisu recipe from The Cheese Lover’s Kitchen Handbook by Juliet Harbutt. However, I could not resist the lure of the gorgeous strawberries showing up at the grocery store even though I know they are not in season. So, I omitted the lady fingers and brandy and used strawberries in place — a sort of summer tiramisu.

I used up all of my mascarpone. The one made with creme fraiche starter was firmer, more textured and had the underlying flavor of cream cheese. The one made with simple tartaric acid stayed soupy and very bland. Nonetheless, I mixed them together and the flavor, with the eggs and sugar and berries and grated chocolate was divine. I shared it with the neighbors across the street and we sat on their deck, under the stars and gobbled it up in a matter of minutes.

You can see all of the steps and a better explanation of the recipe in my Flickr set. I would totally make this again. With the starter, the mascarpone was very easy to do and had a really fresh and light flavor which gave the tiramisu a real liveliness. Tiramisu requires chilling for at least an hour or as long as 24 hours so this would be a great dessert to make ahead of time. The mascarpone can sit refrigerated for at least a week.

I probably won’t post every time I make another batch of yogurt as it’s so easy and I have a feeling that I have a lot of yogurt making in my future. But, for this batch, we took the yogurt making another step further by using a starter from our last batch.

For our first foray into yogurt making, we followed Dr. Fankhauser’s wonderful recipe, with great results. We used an organic whole milk and Nancy’s yogurt. Nancy’s is an Oregon brand, made in Springfield since the 1960s. It’s my preferred yogurt and I buy a lot of it every year. The first thing I did with our delicious batch after sampling it was to portion out 8 oz. of it into an ice-cube tray to freeze and serve as the starter the next batch. After frozen, I put them in a plastic baggie where they’ve been sitting for over a month.

The day before I was going to make yogurt, I transferred the cubes to a covered bowl in the fridge and let them thaw out. I considered all the whole milk options at my local New Seasons and decided to give Alpenrose a try. They are also a local, Portland metro, dairy who has been in the milk business for over 90 years. In addition to that, they have a wonderful grounds where they have built a replica “frontier town” for kids and families to play in, they have a baseball field and a velodrome where I’ve been a few times for bike races. They are an icon of an era gone by where big companies have a distinct role in the community and a desire to create a legacy that they can be proud of. And, it’s pretty good milk, too!

To make a short story long, I used the yogurt from the previous set as starter and everything proceeded as usual. I took better notes this time and wrote down the time it took to heat the milk to the right temperature — medium heat for 1 hour to 185-F — and let it incubate overnight, at least 12 hours. It gelled really well, perhaps even better than last time. The flavor is somewhat less intense and less tangy than the last batch. I attribute this mostly to the starter but it could be the milk as well. I’m debating saving another 8 oz from this batch and seeing how it goes. Perhaps next time we can do a comparison taste test with an all-fresh batch and one made using previous starter.

Check out this great article that Linnea sent me about making your own yogurt at the NYTimes. It has a really nice explanation of the bacteria and activity in yogurt and how your culture can really affect the taste of your yogurt.

There were a number of minor setbacks, even prior to the actual cheese making, mostly due to my ill planning and failure to read the recipe all the way through.  (All things I made resolutions to correct this year.)  Since we didn’t have the starter needed for Ricki Carroll’s recipe, we used one from The Home Creamery by Kathy Farrel-Kingsley.  While a good time was had by all, the cottage cheese could have benefited from closer attention.  Cheese making, I’m coming to realize, is really all about attention to detail and attentive monitoring.  Not necessarily skills that I’ve honed in the kitchen as I’m more of a throw it all in a pot and see what happens kind of cook.

The milk got a LITTLE hotter than it should have right from the outset, so it carried a scalded aroma and flavor all the way through to the end product.   I think we also rinsed and drained it a bit too much as well as it was very dry.  Even after adding some milk as suggested by the recipe to make it more resemble store bought cottage cheese it just tasted kind of crumbly.  While certainly not our best attempt at cheese, it was nice to get back into the kitchen and start talking about potential solutions and ideas for monitoring the cheese process in the future.  You can check out the day’s events here.

You’ll note some pictures of the cheese plate I served up which was a collection of Iowa cheese (+ one from Wisconsin) that I’d purchased while visiting my family over the holidays.  I was just somewhat interested to see what was available from my home state, like for instance, Maytag Blue Cheese, made in Newton, IA.  Iowa certainly held its own in the tasting, but I must say, that this was my first exposure to Carr Valley Cheese Company, and their aged goat cheese, was amazing.

The last of the Willamette Valley Cheese Co. Boerenkaas from cheese festival weekend. Heaven on a plate!

We used this well-documented recipe from Dr. Fankhauser’s great collection of how-tos on cheese and dairy. We used Nancy’s yogurt because it’s local (and delicious) and is also made only with milk and cultures. We also used this handy digital thermometer that my husband bought for using in beer brewing and with his smoker.

You can set it to a temperature and have it alarm you when it reaches that temp and you can have it read either celsius or fahrenheit. Fankhauser’s recipe was noted mostly in celsius and so we set the temp that way. One of our biggest challenges thus far has been keeping an eye on the temperature and not letting the milk get too hot and burn. Having to remember to check back with thermometer in hand has often meant that we’ve missed it when it has gotten too hot. It also helps to maybe not drink so much wine while cheesemaking. (Your mileage may vary.)

It took about an hour to let the milk get to temp — 85-90 C (185-195 F) — on medium heat, stirring periodically to get an accurate temp reading. I think it went a bit faster when I put the lid on (shush) and just went back every ten minutes or so for a temp check.

After cooling the milk and homogenizing the starter, we added it to the milk, stirring to incorporate. Then we transferred the milk/starter into four quart-sized canning jars, which I had sterilized previously. It actually would have had enough for another half-quart so if you have an extra quart or smaller jar at the ready you may get a bit more.

Lastly, we needed to let it incubate for at least three hours at 50 C. You can find on the market special yogurt makers which do just this — keep the culture at the proper temperature for a long period of time. However, Dr. Fankhauser suggests an exceptional method: using a cooler!

We used very hot tap water and brought the water to a temp of around 47 C. Our instructions warned us not to let the temp get above 50 C so we thought this was pretty good. We let it sit for three hours (closed lid, of course) and it had cooled to about 45 C in that time. We were impressed! This may be the solution we need for keeping cheese milk at temp for a long period of time.

* * *

While it was incubating, Nicole and I made a trip to Bob’s Red Mill. Do you know this guy? Have you been? I had a Chinook Book coupon for half off one item and my friend Leah convinced me that I should buy a 25lb bag of white flour and then trade half of it for half of her Bob’s Red Mill 25lb bag of whole wheat flour. This sounded like a great idea at the time (there was wine) and so that’s what I did. Plus I got yeast, steel cut oats, granola and coarse cornmeal. I resisted many, many other interesting things. So, I guess I have some baking to do….

* * *

When we got back, Nicole and I still had about an hour of waiting so we made some cheese plans for the year and looked up some cheese events and plotted total cheese domination. When that was over, we checked on the yogurt. And… no gelling! We panicked a little bit — okay, I panicked — and then started looking up other yogurt recipes. Most called for anywhere from 4 to 24 hours of incubating. We took some of the cooler water out of the cooler, heated up more water and added that — careful not to go over the line of the jar lids — until it was back up to about 47 C and then left it. Another three hours and we had gelling. By bedtime, they all looked really good (about 10 hours by that point). I went ahead and left them until morning. There may have been more gelling after that but I couldn’t tell. I popped them in the fridge and let them cool for a day.

And here’s what it looked like when I took it out for a test run:

Perfect, I say!

It was very tangy, light and really quite delicious! I may try the suggestion of adding 4 Tablespoons of powdered milk prior to heating to get a firmer yogurt. But, really, this yogurt is awesome. You can also save 8 oz of this to use as starter for the next batch which would save a few bucks.

To see more photos of the process and a little more commentary, go to my flickr set here.

My husband and I joined an amateur bowling league last fall and had a great time with our team. (We are quite amateur, we’re like “Bad News Bears” — that’s us up there on election night at the bowling alley.) Anyway, one of the couples in our team let on that they had a raclette grill and so Thom and I instantly put forth the idea that they should host a raclette night. Thankfully, Marc and Kristen were happy to do that and so, after a long, harrowing bowling season which resulted in a shut-out by our team in the finals (the agony of defeat), we were ready to drown our sorrows with stinky, melted cheese.

* * *

I feel like there’s two kind of people in this world: people that don’t know about raclette and people that love raclette.

As a kid and a military brat, I grew up moving around and living in a lot of different places. When I was very young we lived in Germany and my parents were really great about picking up the local food culture and adopting it as their own. I can only imagine that that is where my mom picked up the raclette habit. As a kid, I wasn’t a big fan of it. As I got older, though, and my tastebuds matured, I started to really enjoy it!

Raclette is a semi-soft, cow’s milk cheese that has a very distinctive odor. The cheese hails from the french-speaking part of Switzerland and is made primarily in the Valais Canton. It is served hot over a selection of vegetables, typically boiled new potatoes, pickled onions and small gherkins or cornichons — little pickles. It can also be served alongside or over bread.

A few years ago, one of Thom’s coworkers was talking about raclette and Thom joined in (having had it at my parents’ house a couple times) and pretty soon the coworker was hosting a raclette night with her raclette grill. If you mention you have a raclette grill, we will force you to feed us stinky cheese!

Anyway, here’s the spread that Kristen and Marc put together for us in their lovely home: sliced raclette (of course) and also sliced gruyere and gouda. The grill is a two part contraption — the top part heats up and you can put veggies and meats there to cook. Kristen marinated some fresh shrimp in olive oil and spices and cooked that on top with sliced red and yellow bell peppers. The shrimp was phenomenal!

For smothering with raclette, they did the traditional boiled potatoes, gherkins and pickled onions. You can buy small white pickled onions in a jar or, if you are feeling special, you can do what Kristen did and pickle your own onions. They were out of this world — sweet and vinegary — and I could have eaten the whole pile just by itself! They also had on hand sliced baguette, marinated mushrooms, green olives and sliced apple. It was, hands-down, the fanciest raclette I have ever seen let alone eaten.

But, what about the cheese? There is a slot underneath the grill top where little paddles sit. You put your cheese on the paddle and slide it back in. Keep an eye on the cheese and when it gets bubbly, take our your paddle and use your handy raclette scraper(!) to push the cheese over the condiments already arranged on your plate. Get your fork out and dig in as it’s best hot.

The flavor of the cheese is mild and the cheese releases a bit of oil as it cooks so it’s quite creamy and blends with the flavors of the other foods. Something about the vinegar both balances the cheese flavor and enhances it. I may be tempted to get my own raclette grill as we had such a good time.

Here we are enjoying some raclette:

If you are interested in trying this and you don’t have to have a raclette grill, it’s no problem! While my mom has a number of wonderful, specialty gadgets in her kitchen, she does not have a raclette grill and she has made it for our family for years. She uses an oven-proof plate — a shallow dish or a cast iron skillet — slices up the raclette thinly and puts it in a 450 oven until bubbly. Then the hot dish is carefully set in the center of the table and everyone cuts a slice and uses a spatula to slide the hot cheese over their condiments already on their plates. Delicious!

* * *

Finally, in preparation for the event, Marc sent out a few emails about what raclette is and how it is served. He came across this amazing video which shows raclette being prepared in a way I’ve never seen before but I’m very excited to try someday. Thom and I are talking about a Europe trip and this will definitely go on the agenda.

If you haven’t quite got your mind wrapped around this, read this charming writeup from The Amateur Gormet where the author gets schooled on raclette by his young, Swiss nephew — lots of great raclette photos.

What happened is this: we have waited about thirty days for the cheese to age. Our plan was to cut into it this week. I noticed earlier this week that I could see mold under the wax. Oh noes!!! Investigation commenced this evening.

It doesn’t look too bad though not quite the texture I was expecting. It’s very light colored and has not much of a scent. Luckily there does not appear any mold running through the cheese. It’s firm but not hard. However, when you peel back the wax….

Bleh. Not good. Along the sides there is light veins of mold and on the top and bottom in all the little hollows there is some serious moldage. I cut off the moldy bits and my husband and I both tasted it. It’s slightly tangy and a little crumbly. I can’t say that it is anything like cheddar. It’s not bad, necessarily, but I wouldn’t call it exceptionally good. I think this weekend I’ll carve away some more mold and let some unmoldy bits come up to room temp and taste it that way.

I really don’t know what went wrong. Obviously, it was too damp when I waxed it. Before waxing, I had needed to wipe off a touch of mold and perhaps I didn’t get all the spores. I’m going to do some reading up on this but may attempt the farmhouse cheddar again as soon as this weekend. We’ll see. This is certainly a learning process and I’ve gained so much appreciation for cheesemakers.

I ordered 1 lb of red cheese wax from Ricki Carrol’s cheesemaking supply company — unfortunately, nobody had it locally. There’s a little sheet of directions which helpfully comes with the wax as I’ve never worked with this before and didn’t know what to expect. It took about thirty minutes on medium to medium-low in my improvised double boiler for it to become liquid. Heat higher than that caused the wax to start to bubble and spit so low and slow is the way to go.

Once it was in this liquid state it was a very thin mixture — I’ve only used paraffin before (a long time ago) and I recall that that stuff was much more thick.

I used a natural bristle brush (the book said that a synthetic could melt in the hot wax) and brushed it on in one thin coat followed by a second, making sure to fill in any holes or low spots in the cheese.

Though the wax was definitely hot, it cooled and solidified remarkably quickly (within seconds) and then was touchable. Getting two layers of wax on (two thin is better than one thick) took about fifteen to twenty minutes with a little rest in between layers. Brush the wax on until it starts to cool and then re-dip your brush — this keeps the surface looking glossy and not too smudgy (hard to explain until you do it).

Voila — Cheese is waxed and ready to age!

Things to know: your waxing brush will never be the same. I tried to remove the wax but it was impossible. After a little internet research I determined that this would be okay as the wax in the brush will melt into the next wax mixture somewhat and be pliable. I guess if I switch colors, I’ll need a new brush.

I put my little bowl of wax in the freezer after it had cooled and when the wax was rock hard I was able to pry it out with a knife and wrap it up to be used again. I used boiling water to get the wax residue off the bowl and wiped it out with a cloth.

Also, this wax will seriously stain — don’t be flinging it around!

The hard thing now is waiting. This farmhouse cheddar wants to be aged a month. Currently, it is sitting in my fridge all cute-like, not doing anything perceptible. Sometime soon, we’ll cut a slice off and sample it. If we think it needs more aging we can just re-wax the cut and let it sit a while longer. Hmm… we’ll see!