We are getting to the pointy end of the year of cheese making.  This is the 9th Cheesepalooza challenge and we have made it to the final, advanced chapter of the book.  This months challenge was mould ripened cheese, the common or well known varieties being Brie and Camembert.

I have had some great success making a Camembert style cheese.  Although the first attempts weren’t perfect, they were more than worthy of eating. Then I tried to make some more last month and it failed miserably.  I followed exactly the same recipe that I’ve successfully used before.  It was a last minute make for a dinner party. I had just enough time to ripen the cheese, but not enough time to try it before serving it to my guests.  I broke my golden rule of cheese making: always try the cheese before sharing it with friends.  We cut into the slightly gooey Camembert, my friend took the first bite, and spat it straight back out again.  Somehow it had gone rancid.

Disheartened by last months disaster, I thought I would try something completely different for this challenge.  After perusing the recipes I settled on the Bloomy Robiola. This cheese has a completely different process to any other I’ve made and the part goat’s milk part cow’s milk appealed to me.

This cheese has very little rennet compared to others, this means it takes much longer to form the curd.  The recipe calls for the milk to be kept above room temperature for up to 18 hours, which meant a little clever thinking.  I picked up a great tip from The Cheese Making Workshop.  During their workshop we used a plastic tub paddling in a styrofoam box of warm water.

This method works a treat.  I managed to maintain the correct temperature for 18 hours.  It was difficult to time the making of this cheese so that the curd was ready to be cut at a sociable time of day.  The recipe did say the curd might be ready after 12 hours, but I was asleep at that point so had to let it go for 18 hours.  If I make this again I would ensure I time the making so that I can check it from 12 hours. I think my curd was a little too firm.

I cut the curds into large chunks to make it easier to scoop into the Camembert moulds. The curds then drain, and are flipped, to form a large mass under their own weight.  This was another part of the process that didn’t quite feel right to me.  As the curd was quite firm, it didn’t settle into the moulds as it does when making Camembert.  The curds did however taste delicious.

This is the cheese after it had drained and been flipped.  As you can see it was rather lumpy and had not shrunk as much as I expected it to, or as the book described.  Again I think it was due to the firm curds.

Into the fridge it went, ready to grow it’s layer of mould.  And it did.  I love watching the mould develop; each day as the cheese is flipped there is a little more skin preserving the stinky insides.

Then judgement day arrives. After ten days of ripening it was time to crack open the unknown cheese that is Robiola.  I’ve never tried this cheese so I have nothing to compare it to.  I could guess what it was meant to taste like from the description in the book and sadly I don’t think I achieved it.  It looked great, and the curd tasted fantastic when it was fresh, but yet again this cheese was on the verge of rancid.  I could tell it has potential. It had the acidic hint of a goats cheese; with the earthy tones of a stinky mould ripened cheese; followed by an after taste that left me running to the bathroom.  It also had an interesting, firm but chalky texture.

I think this is another cheese I will have to bin.  I’m not deterred though, as I can see great potential with this one.  I have two things to try to improve on next time.  I will be a little more vigilant with the cutting of the curd and I think I will buy some new starter culture.  I’m wondering if my culture is past it’s best as the common link between the rancid Camembert and the dodgy Robiola is the same batch of starter culture.  Watch this space for the new, improved Robiola.

This month the Cheesepalooza challenge was to make a washed rind cheese.  The options were Gouda, Fontina or Edam.  Having made Gouda, Fontina and Edam successfully in past I decided to make something new. The other suggestion was Havarti, not washed rind cheese but a washed curd cheese.

Havarti is a fairly straightforward cheese to make.  You add the starter culture, cut the curd and wash it with some warm water. It is then pressed.

I’ve had some difficulties applying enough, even weight to my cheese so I wasn’t very pleased when I cut into the final product to find some holes.  Holes suggest the cheese hasn’t been pressed with enough weight.  It also runs the risk of providing air pockets for unwanted mould to grow.  As much as I want to make blue cheese, the blue mould has to be intentional.

I’m not sure quite how to describe Havarti.  It is not that dissimilar to the texture of a mild cheddar. The recipe book said you can eat it young or age to taste.  This Havarti has confirmed that I like a mature cheese.  One week in and the cheese lacked flavour.  This is a cheese for those people that buy cheese slices and mild cheddar.  Despite the addition of the dill, it still lacked flavour.

I tasted the cheese because the recipe said you could eat it young but I have my doubts, so I have packaged it up to continue aging for a few more months. I am hoping to get a little more depth of flavour from the Havarti in the future.

• Appearance: Processed, with a thin rind
• Nose (aroma): Mellow
• Overall Taste: Bland
• Sweet to Salty: Mildly savoury
• Mild (mellow) to Robust to Pungent (stinky): Mild
• Mouth Feel: (gritty, sandy, chewy, greasy, gummy, etc.): Plastic

*Edit thanks to information from Curds and Wine

I have been longingly admiring this section of the cheese book for a while.  This type of cheese involves a different type of starter and a slightly different process.  I was super keen to jump right in, which meant I didn’t have time to read any other posts before taking the plunge.

Had I waited another 24 hours (the perils of being ahead of time from my fellow participants) I would have learnt a few invaluable lessons from Ian that would have made this process less painful.  Although I often write about the trials and tribulations of home cheese making, I have been pretty successful in the last year.

This was the first cheese I thought I was going to have to bin.  I tried to take Mary’s advice and use some goat’s milk in the mix.  Although I tried to adjust the amount of rennet to ensure I got some curd, I underestimated and had to add the same amount again.  It finally set, but the curds were very weak.  I just about managed to press it, but I haven’t dared to try this crumbly looking cheese as yet due to the fear of a bitter result from the excessive amount of rennet.

Not happy with my first effort, I started again following the recipe to the letter.  This time I achieved that clean break, and thought it was going to plan, until I started to press.  By this time I had read that all important post from Ian recommending that we soak the cheesecloth but promptly forgotten this is what I should have done.

Mid way through the pressing, the sort after information  was remembered.  As I carefully unwrapped the cheese, it did exactly what Ian said it would and stuck to the cheesecloth.  I just managed to rescue enough, and re-press in my whey soaked cheesecloth.

And then there was the cracking. I thought I had pressed sufficiently, but after brining the cheese developed some Grand Canyon like cracks. Further research revealed I should have added a little whey to the brine to make it more acidic, thus not shocking the cheese into cracking.

What a frustrating process.  I had vowed it was one not to be repeated… until yesterday.

Asiago can be eaten young, like a Pecorino or aged to become more like a Parmesan.  I was not looking forward to the taste test. I thought I would have to cook with this cheese to get rid of it. How wrong I was.  I cracked into a small piece the other day to use in a Carbonara.  To my surprise it was exactly as the book described. A beautifully, crumbly, young Italian style cheese. Despite the stress, I did it. I said never again but with the lessons learnt from my Cheesepalooza community I think I can succeed with this cheese.

Well I still have a lot to learn and I have had a couple of minor disasters along the way, but overall I am very satisfied with my cheese making efforts for the year.  The biggest achievement is to be able to serve a platter of home made cheeses to friends without the fear that I’m going to poison them.

I am five months into the Cheesepalooza challenge and this month we step up a gear to make what I would consider a ‘real’ cheese.  A simple cheddar style cheese with the optional addition of dried herbs.  Now we are getting onto the serious stuff, where patience is required.  There is not enough time in a month to make and age this cheese sufficiently (especially if you do it on 27th December) so I now have to sit and wait for a couple of months while it does it’s thing in the cheese cave.  I have enjoyed the other cheddar I have made so I have high hopes for this one.

The process is slightly more precise and lengthy now the cheeses are getting more cheesey.  The curd for this cheese has to be stirred gently at a specific temperature for quite some time.  Good music should be part of the recipe for this one as you cannot leave the pan for a good 20 minutes as you stir.

Although this cheese is called a cheddar, it does not actually involve the cheddaring process, which involves pressing, stacking and re-cutting of the curds so it will be interesting to see what effect this has on the flavour.

The stirring and heating of the curds helps them to firm up, giving that harder texture that cheddar has.  The curds are then drained when they have shrunk sufficiently.  At this stage you can add your optional herbs.  I added chives so I could compare the flavour to non-herbed cheddar I have made.

Pressing is also the key to the texture of this cheese.  If it is not pressed sufficiently you will end up with unwanted holes in your cheese.  They are unwanted as this is where the bacteria can grow and sour the cheese.

Once pressed the cheese is brined in order to help flavour develop and rind formation.  It is then air dried, again to help rind formation but also to provide a dry surface for the wax to stick to.  At this stage waxing is optional but I have tried aging in vacuum sealed bags, but I much prefer the result with wax.

With previous cheese I have portioned the cheese before waxing but this time I have waxed all 950g of the cheese to see what effect this has on the aging process.  I will then cut and wax again when it comes to eating. Even I can’t manage to eat that much cheese in the short time frame it takes to go mouldy.  Don’t forget my cheese does not have any preservatives.

Waxing such a large cheese can be a little problematic so I had to build up the layers gradually.  I don’t have a big enough pan to dedicate to cheese waxing to get a good dunk.

With a successful year of cheese making I look forward to all of the the different challenges that 2013 has in store, including cold smoking my cheese with this year’s Christmas present! Thank you for reading and Happy New Year to all you lovely readers of Nic Cooks.

P.S. check my Facebook Page and Twitter account in about 2 months to find out how this cheese tastes.

I’ve never really been a huge fan of halloumi because I don’t like the squeak. Yes, I know, it’s another one of my funny food rules, but it feels like fingernails down a chalkboard on my teeth. However, halloumi is a cheese that so many people rave about that I though I owed it another chance. It is also a relatively quick and easy cheese to make, so I whipped up a batch on a busy cheese making day as I was making some Camembert and Cabecou for the arrival of the in-laws. There is no better way to impress your mother-in-law than presenting her with an entirely home made cheese platter.

Anyway, back to the halloumi. I followed the recipe in Artisan Cheesemaker to the letter so I’m not going to write it out here. As a general guide for halloumi you heat the milk, curdle with rennet. No starter culture is necessary for this one, which makes the process at least an hour shorter than other cheeses as you don’t need to let the starter ripen.

Once the curd has formed it is cut, stirred and gently heated. The curds are then pressed for a short period of time. My only variation to the recipe was the shape of the mould. The recipe suggests round, but then recommends cutting off the corners. I don’t like waste so I went straight for the square mould.

Once pressed the unique process for halloumi begins. The whey is reserved and the cheese is heated gently in the whey which I think gives it its unique texture and frying properties. Finally, to give the halloumi it’s distinct flavour the cheese is soaked in brine. Ok, so I lied about following the recipe to the letter, I also tweaked this bit to use a milder brine as I found the last one really salty.

Now once I had my completed block of halloumi I had to work out what to do with it. I wanted a dish that would showcase it, so I turned to Twitter asking for suggestions. And the overwhelming response? Do nothing. Simply fry and serve with a squeeze of lemon. That was me well and truly told!  Whatever you do with it, halloumi, lemon and chilli are a match made in heaven.

I had a good yield of cheese from my high quality milk so there was enough to do a second dish.  I couldn’t resist ‘messing’ with the halloumi just a little.  After lunch at MoVida in Melbourne last year I was charmed by the Bocadillo they serve (AKA Spanish sandwiches).  With a dash of lemon and some roasted capsicum they make a great light lunch or maybe a fancy canape.

So how did my halloumi taste?  Just as halloumi should, I think.  It was salty and squeaky.  There were four of us who tucked into the two servings of halloumi.  Everyone else thoroughly enjoyed it and were left wanting more, but I’m afraid to say I am still distressed by the squeak.  I will be happy to make halloumi for others as it is a relatively quick cheese to make and very satisfying, but when it comes to eating I just cannot get past that squeak.  I know I am the exception to the rule, so I will leave you with my recipe for MoVida inspired halloumi Bocadillo.

I forgot to weigh my halloumi so I cannot give accurate measurements for my recipe but I used half of the final yield, which I think was about 400-500g

Halloumi and Capsicum Bocadillo (serves 4 as a small snack)

1 red capsicum
1/2 block halloumi (200-250g)
8 slices of white bread
olive oil
1 lemon, half juiced, half cut into wedges to serve

Put the capsicum in a very hot oven for 20-30 minutes until the skin starts to blister and can be peeled easily.  Once the skin has started to blacken and blister, remove from the oven and put in a bowl and cover with cling film to continue to steam while it cools.  Once cool enough to handle remove the skin, seeds and stalk. You should be left with one piece of capsicum that can be roughly cut into four rectangles.

Meanwhile, cut the crusts off the bread then cut into eight rectangles roughly the length and half the width of the average slice of bread.  There is quite a lot of waste, but with the shape of bread I was using the pieces would be too uneven if I cut the slice in half.  The leftovers can be made into breadcrumbs or fed to the the chooks as a treat!

Once you have removed the capsicum from the oven, turn the heat down to 180 degrees Celsius.  Brush one side of the bread with olive oil and place on a baking tray oiled side up.  Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until golden brown but not burnt.

Cut the halloumi into four rectangles  the same size as the bread.  Just before the bread is toasted, fry the halloumi in a hot frying pan with a little olive oil until browned on both sides. This should take 4-5 minutes on each side.  Drizzle with some lemon juice just before they are ready.

To assemble, place a piece of halloumi on four of the pieces of baked bread.  Top with a sliced of roasted capsicum and another slice of baked bread.

Serve with a wedge of lemon.

Tasting Notes:

• Appearance: Creamy, white with markings from the mould
• Nose (aroma): Salty
• Overall Taste: Salty
• Sweet to Salty: Salty
• Strength: Mild cheese flavour, but strong salty flavour
• Mouth Feel: Squeaky

For the second cheese this month I opted to do a compare and contrast exercise.  At the same time that I made the Chevre I also made the Cabecou. These are two different types of goats cheese, but essentially contain the same ingredients.  This is what mystifies me about cheese making. I know I’ve said it before and I know I’ll say it again but the process of turning milk into cheese is like magic.

For the Cabecou I started with the same milk as the Chevre, I added the same starter, but the milk was heated to slightly different temperatures and left to ripen for longer.  The curds are transferred into small moulds and left to drain under their own weight until they have shrunk to at least two thirds of the original size.  Once the curds have spent a couple of days air drying they are transferred to olive oil.  You can also add herbs to the olive oil but I wasn’t convinced it made any difference to the final flavour of the cheese.

The resulting cheese was a silky smooth round of goats cheese that was firm enough to be cut with a knife but could also be crumbled or spread.  The Chevre was good, but this elevated the humble goats cheese to the next level.

Beetroot and goats cheese make a great combination, as do goats cheese and truffle.  Combine the three together and you are left with a simple salad elevated to Michelin star status.  Inspired by a recipe in the Quay cookbook, but adapted to be achievable in the home kitchen, I defy you not to love this spring salad.

Beetroot and Goats Cheese Salad (serves 2)

6 baby beetroot
20g pinenuts, toasted
100g salad leaves
50-100g Cabecou

25g honey
25ml truffle oil
25ml red wine vinegar
50ml  extra virgin olive oil
smoked salt and pepper to taste

Top and tail the beetroot and put in a pan with some boiling water and cook until tender, this will take anything from 20-40 minutes depending on the size of your beetroot.  Once cooked, drain the beetroot and allow to cool.  Once cool enough to handle don a pair of gloves and carefully peel the beetroot without painting your kitchen red.  Quarter the beetroot then halve the pieces again if they are still quite large.

To make the dressing, put the honey, truffle oil, olive oil and red wine vinegar into a small bowl and whisk until combined.  Season to taste.

To assemble the salad, put the salad leaves and beetroot in a bowl and drizzle with the salad dressing, you might not need all of it and toss to coat.  Crumble over the goats cheese and sprinkle with the pinenuts.  To add an extra level of luxury I also sprinkled with smoked salt, but that is optional.

This recipe involves a starter culture (I used Flora Danica and some rennet as I can’t get the one listed in the book) being added to the goats milk then leaving it to ripen and form the curds over a long period of time.  I didn’t opt for this recipe on a previous occasion because I wanted more instant gratification but if you do have the time to spare the results are far superior doing it this way.

My curds were more delicate than the book implied they should have been but with careful handling I managed to ladle them into the butter muslin to drain.  The result was a delicious, smooth, spreadable goats cheese and a definite improvement on the grainy goats cheese I made before.

The chevre remained quite delicate even after draining but I just managed to shape some of it into a log and coat with cracked black pepper corns.  It was also great served with peas and pear on crostini.  I even turned some into a dip with some pea puree, mint and lemon juice, much to the amusement of my work colleagues (they are not cooks).

Thanks to my friend Bill for his photography help for this post. He doesn’t usually photograph food but the things he does photograph are generally awesome. Some of his work can be seen here.

Crostini with Peas, Pear and Chevre (serves 2)

150g Frozen Peas
15g spring onions, sliced
5g mint leaves, finely chopped
75g pears, peeled and finely chopped
lemon juice to taste
salt and pepper to taste
mini baguette
extra virgin olive oil
50g goats cheese

Start by defrosting the peas. I do this by putting them in a small bowl and covering them with boiling water. Leave to stand for about a minute or two then drain.  Place 100g of the peas into a mini food processor or the beaker of a stick blender and blend to a rough puree.

Transfer the pea puree to a bowl and combine with the rest of the whole peas, the mint, spring onions and the peeled and chopped pear. Mix well, so all the bits are evenly distributed then add a squeeze of lemon juice to taste.  The goats cheese is quite tart so I didn’t put too much lemon juice in but if you like a zingy taste add more.  Also season with salt and pepper taste.  Set aside while you make the crostini.

Slice the bread, on an angle, into 1 centimeter thick slices.  I made about ten. Drizzle the bread with olive oil and grill on medium high for a couple of minutes each side until brown but not burnt.  The exact cooking times will vary depending on your grill so don’t walk away like I often do or you’ll end up with burnt bread.

To serve, top each crostini with a heaped tablespoon of the pea mixture then dot with some chevre. A great spring lunch.

Tasting Notes:

• Appearance: White, smooth but chalky looking
• Nose (aroma): Acidic
• Overall Taste: Typical goat taste
• Sweet to Salty: Savoury, mildly salty
• Strength: Medium, but not great if you don’t like goat’s cheese
• Mouth Feel: smooth with that typical goat feel

Once you have the buttermilk you are ready to make the paneer.  This will have to be made at least a day before but could be done a few days in advance if you keep the buttermilk in the fridge once prepared.

Cheese needs an acid to curdle the milk.  With the Jamie Oliver recipe I used lemon juice but for this recipe you use larger quantities of the more lightly acidic buttermilk.  I had my doubts as to whether the homemade buttermilk would work, but after heating the milk to the correct temperature it curdled as per the recipe.

Then I got a bit confused. The milk curdled beautifully but the next part of the recipe was to heat further, but somehow I think I heated it a bit too much as the finished product was multi-textured with parts of it clearly over done.  This did not deter me, I completed the recipe, including adding some cumin seeds to make a flavoured cheese.

The final product was not quite the right texture but it tasted good and was perfect for cooking with.  I added it to some Gozleme and made a curry accompaniment with spinach and tomato.  The paneer had a great flavour, especially with the extra addition of cumin, and if I hadn’t overheated it, it would have been even better.  I still enjoyed it with my curry and this is definitely one I’ll be doing again.  Next time I think I will drain once it has formed the curd mass rather than heating it further and see what the result is.  If anyone else has made this cheese, please let me know what you think.  But for now, here is my recipe for the side dish I made to go with a curry.

Spinach, Tomato and Paneer
100g onion, thinly sliced
olive oil for frying
1 tablespoon Coriander seeds, crushed in a pestle and mortar
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, crushed in a pestle and mortar
250g tomatoes, deseeded and flesh chopped
100g spinach
150g paneer
salt and pepper to taste

Put a small amount of oil in a frying pan and gently fry the sliced onion over a medium heat.  Add the crushed coriander and cumin seeds and fry for about ten minutes until the onion is cooked but not brown.

Add the chopped tomatoes and stir for a minute then add the spinach and allow it to wilt.  Finally add the paneer and stir to combine.  Season to taste then serve as an accompaniment to a curry.

The spinach and paneer mixture was also great served cold the following day as a filling for a wrap.

The idea behind Cheesepalooza is to teach yourself to make cheese at home, with an online community of home cheese makers and the awesome book Artisan Cheese Making at Home by Mary Karlin.  The book is thoughtfully arranged in chapters that allow you to build on your skills gradually, starting with the quick and easy fresh cheeses.

The first suggestion is to make whole milk ricotta.  I have made ricotta before, using my own recipe adapted from a few variations I found online, but the point of this challenge is to do it the Karlin way.  In order to enjoy the cheese I did have to adapt the recipe slightly.  Even with the light milk, cheese has a fairly high amount of fat, so as well as reducing the fat it’s about eating in moderation.  I also left out the cream, which I think is what gave my cheese a drier, crumblier texture that most ricotta.

I have to confess I am not a huge fan of whole milk ricotta, I much prefer the more traditional whey ricotta.  Whey ricotta is much creamier and I actually find it more flavoursome.  The whey ricotta will come at a later date, as you need to make another type of cheese first in order to get your whey.

The low fat ricotta was made from the best quality low fat, unhomogenised milk I can lay my hands on.  This is the Over the Moon milk that I buy at the local farmers market.  The good quality milk meant the finished product had more flavour than I expected but the texture of the ricotta was quite dry and crumbly, even though I only left it to drain for a short period of time.  On the few occasions that I have made whole milk ricotta before, I have always packed it into a mould and left it to stick together into a firm piece of cheese that I can bake in the oven.  The low fat variety would not compact together so I don’t think it would work as a baked cheese.  It was nice to crumble over dishes as an alternative to other cheeses and was certainly better than going without any cheese.  I served the finished product on toast with some grilled tomatoes and with sweetcorn fritters.

Here is my recipe for low fat ricotta, adapted from Mary Karlin’s recipe

Low Fat Ricotta
1 litre of low fat, unhomogenised milk
1/2 teaspoon citric acid
non-iodised salt to taste

Ensure all of your equipment in clean and sterilised. Put the milk in a non-reactive saucepan large enough to hold the milk comfortably. Add the citric acid to the milk and stir well to combine.  Heat the milk gently until it reaches 90C when it gets to about 85C you will see the milk start to curdle.

When it gets to 90C remove the pan from the heat, stir gently, then put the lid on and leave to stand for fifteen minutes.

Line a colander with damp butter muslin and place over a bowl.  Gently scoop the curd from the whey and allow to drain in the butter muslin.  The longer you leave the curds to drain, the dryer the end product will be. I left mine for about five minutes, until it had visibly stopped dripping. Once drained to your liking, add a pinch of salt to taste and store in an air tight container in the fridge until ready to use.

Tasting Notes:

• Appearance: Looked like dry cottage cheese (creamy white crumbly clumps).
• Nose (aroma): No smell
• Overall Taste: Milky, with a mild taste, used more for texture than taste.
• Sweet to Salty: Mildly sweet, with a faint hint of salt.
• Strength: Very mild
• Mouth Feel: Dry and crumbly

Last year I learnt to make meat with the support of an amazing online community. Who knew it was possible to teach yourself a new skill without leaving your sofa?  We read each others blog posts and did trouble shooting via Twitter and low and behold there were few disasters.

When I discovered a group of bloggers who were keen to repeat this adventure but with cheese I was in, no questions asked.  I have been trying to teach myself to make cheese and it’s not going too badly, but to go on a journey with a bunch of other bloggers will mean I’m even more successful. In 12 months time I will hopefully have a cheese in the cave that I have invented and executed to perfection.  Introducing Cheesepalooza.  A year long cheese making project hosted by A Canadian Foodie, Much to do About Cheese, Deb the Locavore and Big Addie.

So how does it work?  On the first of each month the cheese challenge will be announced then you make it and blog about it on the first of the following month.  Starting with the soft, fresh cheeses, we will work up to mold ripened and blue with a finale of our own invention.  It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a blog you can still join in, or more information click here.

Anyway, enough about Cheesepaloza, just to prove how easy cheese making can be here is my recipe for Labne. And what are you waiting for? Sign up and get cheese making!

Labne
1kg plain, natural yoghurt
1 tsp salt

Stir the salt into the yoghurt.  Line a colander or large sieve with butter muslin and place over a bowl. Put the yoghurt in the butter muslin and leave in the fridge to drain for 12-24 hours.  The longer you leave it the thicker it will become.  Once ready transfer to an airtight container or form into balls and cover with olive oil.

I like to serve the Labne with olive oil, pistachios and tarragon, it is also used in Middle Eastern cooking.