I recently came across a video on making cream cheese. I couldn’t believe how easy it appeared to be! I had never attempted it before as I thought it might be complicated or required ordering ingredients as I have seen in other dairy based recipes. I had everything for it (more or less…) so I gave it a try. It worked! Raw milk would have been best or even heavy cream or half and half. All I had was whole milk and I still got a good amount!
The original link is below:
https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/how-to-make-cream-cheese/
Ingredients:
4 cups milk/cream
3 tablespoons lemon juice (she also notes substitutions of lime and white vinegar are acceptable)
A pinch of salt or other flavorings are optional
Add milk to a heavy bottomed pot and turn to a medium high heat. Stir to keep from scorching on the bottom.
When it starts to steam/bubble up on the sides turn to medium heat and add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice at a time. Stir a minute or so after each addition.
I didn’t think it was working but I realized I was using whole milk instead of a more fatty milk and needed to wait. I also got small chunks instead of clumps like in the video.
I ran out of cheesecloth but had these giant muslin tea bags so I set it over a jar and tightened the string.
The jar started to fill with liquid so I pulled the bag out to empty it. I did this twice. I used a butter knife to gently push the bag back in little by little.
I let it drain while I watched half an episode of “Anne with an E.” 😅 Then I squeezed out more liquid.
Once it drained I added a pinch of salt (it could have used more) and then put it in the blender as I don’t have a food processor (which is weird for someone who cooks from scratch a lot. I know). I had strained it too dry and needed to add a tablespoon of milk to cream it up.
It made what looks like a half cup or so. Fattier dairy likely would have produced the 8oz the video said it would make. Still! I made cream cheese!
It definitely doesn’t taste as sweet or creamy as store bought but I really like it. It would be perfect in savory recipes like cream cheese and sausage pinwheels or something of that nature! If you try it let me know! I put some of mine onto a cauliflower pizza crust a friend gave me. I added dill, salt, pepper, sour cream and cheese. Would have been amazing with mushrooms but I was hoping to get a picky eater to eat some.
Supposedly, the leftover liquid will be a good meat marinade so I saved it to try!
The Heathen Homesteader 