Make The Easiest Homemade Cheese

I have been on a food adventure lately. Today was looking for cola cake recipes. Most of them called for buttermilk, so that started me on a journey for buttermilk recipes. One was mixing 1 3/4 tsp of cream of tartar with milk and letting it sit 5-10 minutes. I figure I will use that recipe so that I can use this container of cream of tartar. I bought it last year to make something and I have not used it since. But most milk curdling recipes called for a tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar. Trying to figure out if apple cider vinegar would work too led me to this blog post about making cheese. I had been looking for easy homemade cheese recipes but most of them required rennet and mail order bacteria. Those were not investments I felt comfortable making as a curious beginner. I mean I had all sorts of wonderful baking plans for the cream of tartar and I only used it once. At least it was only a couple of bucks. Anyway, this recipe takes away my fear of not being frugal so i think I’ll try this. I’ll let you know how it turns out unless you make it first. And in that case, let me know what pitfalls to avoid. And as one of my favorite chefs is fond of saying, Happy Cooking!

Bit of Earth Farm

Cheese commands greater respect from me because I’ve endured the ordeal necessary to make cheddar and other hard cheeses.

The instructions presume a cheesemaker whose day is unfettered by constraints. No work, family, pets, short attention span, or other real life obligations can interfere with the exacting process. And I mean exacting. Here’s one line from a typical cheddar recipe. “Raise the temperature two degrees every five minutes, cutting the curd into half-inch cubes in a slow continuous motion when the whey reaches 118 degrees.”

And then there’s aftercare. Cheddar must be pressed under increasing weights and aged at a temperature we can only achieve at my house by storing it in an attic-y closet for a few months in the winter. Needless to say, hard cheese is made infrequently around here. Too much real life going on like work, family, pets, and my tendency to behave badly.

So…

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