kidattypewriter

Monday, May 28, 2012

How to make cheese

Hello! Welcome to my blog post about how to make cheese! Cheese making is a fascinating process that people have been doing for many many centuries, producing the wide variety of cheese substances that we know and love today, such as Home Brand Tasty, Kraft Singles, and that stuff-they-squirt-on-top-of-the-burgers-at-my-local-shopping-centre-so-that-it-looks-like-melted-cheese. Also, cheese making can often be a puzzling and counter-intuitive process: for instance, when you make the curds out of the milk, you have to heat it up to solidify it. Also, when you are salting the curds, the more salt you add, the less salty the cheese is likely to taste! Isn't that fascinating? Well, that doesn't matter.

Of course, I have extensive experience in cheese making myself, such as the one time I attempted to make mascarpone cheese in my kitchen, which is also the only time I attempted to make mascarpone cheese, which is also the only cheese that I have ever attempted to make. Plus, I have attempted to make this only cheese that I have ever attempted to make just this morning, so this extensive experience is still fresh in my head.

In the process of cheese making, I flooded the stove while attempting for over an hour to get the cream to the right temperature for adding the thickener. Also, the thermometer kept on wanting to topple headlong into the cream. Eventually I just chucked the thickener in anyway, and from a sizeable pot of cream, managed to produce an amount of liquid best described as lying between the miniscule to the non-existent. Then, I got ready to go to work. Then, my pants exploded*. Then, I missed the train.

In conclusion, if you are thinking of making cheese yourself, here's how to do it: don't**.


Traditional Kraft Singles makers at work.  

*This really is true. Please don't ask what I am wearing now, that would be embarassing for us all.

**This goes for the people who make Home Brand Tasty, Kraft Singles, and that stuff-they-squirt-on-top-of-the-burgers-at-my-local-shopping-centre-so-that-it-looks-like-melted-cheese too. ESPECIALLY for them.

15 comments:

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Cheese.

TimT said...

It's funny because it's true!

Amanda Anastasi said...

I congratulate you on your culinary efforts, Tim. I have never thought of making cheese, though I have made my own pasta and breads. I love good sharp Italian cheeses like Provolone or Pecorino...not that Aussie Kraft nonsense ;-)

Anonymous said...

Once the Baron's scholarly but eminently readable tome is complete and my PhD is submitted (cough, splutter, look at the floor) we should have a go at making some fresh curd or ricotta. We could use 'bath milk' if we are brave. Or goats' milk - yummy curd! I'd like to make yoghurt some time too, though I suspect that particular activity might become addictive.

TimT said...

ECG, Probably don't need bath milk for curd/ricotta anyway. Just a thickener. For this one I used a tiny bit of tartaric acid. I want to have a go at the 'lemon curd' recipe in my book, which in fact sounds pretty damn similar to the mascarpone recipe. Just with lemon juice as the thickener.

TimT said...

Amanda, growing up, 'Home Brand Tasty' was the only cheese I knew for about a ten years. Then one day mum and dad started bringing home camemberts and bries and I began to look with suspicion upon the world of cheese. It was probably about the same time that Balranald (my home town) actually stopped using a telephone switchboard...

We were never, thank heavens, a Kraft Singles family.

Anonymous said...

Mmmm Lemon curd. Sadly we were a Kraft singles family. I can fondly remember my first taste of triple cream brie - at a school picnic, brought by my science teacher. I swooned (probably at both). Things have looked up, cheese-wise, ever since. Hard, soft, sharp, stinky - all fair game.

TimT said...

And then there's the frottage frais. You begin by rubbing milk curds all over your body...

Anonymous said...

Frottage frais...the logical next step from bath milk.

Anonymous said...

And, TimT, how does one subscribe to comments on your blog? That way I would not miss the erudite replies...

TimT said...

Alas, I'm not erudite enough to know the answer to that.

TimT said...

The other place to get fresh unhomogenised milk in Melbourne - apart from CERES - is in Carlton, a shop on Elgin Street called 'La Latteria'.

Now when the Baron and I speak about it we constantly call it 'La Listeria' or 'La Diptheria'...

Anonymous said...

Or in Waterdale Rd North Ivanhoe (go figure) at Superfruit Organics. No doubt at outrageously inflated prices but much closer than CERES or Carlton.

I'm loving La Listeria...

TimT said...

CERES is actually pretty good for us, we hop on the train and take a short walk from Northcote.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

We've been making yoghourt for a couple of months, ECG. We just began with the dregs from a shop-bought tub of sheep's milk yoghourt, put it in the bottom of a sterilised glass jar, topped up with unhomogenised (but pasteurised milk), plonked it in a thermos otherwise filled with boiling water, and left it for eight hours. Now we take the dregs from our last batch and repeat. It's good for the chickens.

Email: timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au

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