Pinkie's Cheese

Pinkie's Cheese

Pinkie has shared his recipe for the wonderful cheese he makes at Amber Fox on our elist. Here it is for all to make and enjoy.

Ingredients

• 1 litre live culture yougert
• 1 litre whole milk
• 500 ml whipping cream
• 1 litre dry skim milk powder

Tools

• 1 large bowl
• Plastic wrap
• 1 wide knife
• cooking thermometer
• 1 colander
• Cheese cloth
• food grade wax

Begin

Mix all the ingedients in a large bowl. Make sure the skim milk powder is disolved. Set the bowl on a pot of warm water. The bowl should not touch the water. Place the pot with the bowl on your stove. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap with a small hole in it. Raise the temperature of the milk to about 42C.

Do not stir the milk at all. Keep the milk between 42C and 44C for about 6 hours. You do this by turning the stove on for a minute or two every now and then as needed.

When the milk is thickened like yougert, and it starts to produce clear yellow whey, like what you see in store-bought live culture yougert that has been in the fridge for a few days, take a wide knife and cut through the thickened milk in a grid pattern of about 3 to 4 centimetres.

The curd should seperate along the cuts causing the whey to come out of the curd. At this point the curd is very delicate and you do not want to mix the whey and curd back together. With a wide blade knife rock the curd very gently in the whey. At the same time raise the temperature of the curds and whey slowly to about 47C while gently stirring the curds and whey. Do not let the curds sink and clump together. Do not raise the temperature too high or too fast. It should take about 30 to 45 minutes to go from 42C to 47C.

Pour the curds and whey through a cheese cloth lined colander. You can save the whey for other recipes or throw away the whey.

Sprinkle 30 to 40 ml of good sea salt in the wet curds and hang the dripping cheese in the cheese cloth over a bowl to catch the dripping whey. Let the cheese drip for about a day. Tightly wrap the ball of cheese in fresh cheese cloth twice a day until the ball has formed a dry surface or rind and the cheese cloth remains dry. Keep the wrapped cheese at cool room temperature. Coat the ball of cheese in food grade wax and store at cool room temperature for about 6 months.

Of course you can eat the cheese as soon as it has stopped dripping.

Check out Pinkie's website here.

More from the aka Amber Fox Kitchen here.

Radical Faeries, Queer, Gay Spirituality, Gay, Faerie, Rural,Vegetarian, Recipes