HomemadeCreamCheese

It's simple, quick, cheap and easy. Almost curiously unmysterious. And, with thirty minutes of your time, you can cook up a half kilo of creamy and uncomplicated deliciousness. Unsalted, unsweetened, and with no additives.

2 litres of goats cheese, badly strained, yielded about half a kilo of cream cheeese. The texture was smooth, melting nicely in the mouth, no graininess, and fatty enough to make me think about adding extra flavours to the cheese itself. It gave a smooth and sweet, not sour, hit with some light and nutty undertones.

As it sat in the fridge, the taste developed, the texture bacame denser - though still creamy, and the taste...becomes cheesier. Deeper, with a hint of lactic sourness.

A perfect replacement for store bought cream cheese, or Ricotta.

We served it up in canneloni, with chard from the garden (recipe and video to follow), and a slow cooked sticky tomato sauce, and also straight, on homemade bread courtesy of the Gorgeous C's delightful baking art, with a sticky, sweet and ecstatic red onion jam.

Ok, ingredients.

2 litres of milk (I used organic goats milk, cows milk is fine)
250 ml of double cream (next batch I'll try without, for comparison purposes)
1 tablespoon of lemon juice, strained, per litre (add more if necessary)
Thermometer (useful, though not absolutely necessary)
Mix the milk and cream together in a thick bottomed saucepan - Quite important this, as the milk may burn and stick if not.
Heat to 85Degrees C. Stirring occasionally. If you don't have a thermometer, wait until you can see the milk beginning to steam a little.
Add the lemon juice.
Heat until it hits 90 or 95 degrees (I went for 95), or until you see the curds separate from the whey - the milk will look really grainy.
Strain - I scooped out the curds into a sieve, and a lot of curd slipped through the sieve. Ideally, line a sieve with cheesecloth, and filter it through this. Leave it sitting in this for several hours to drain to the consistency you want.
Tip out into a bowl, and refrigerate. Or eat.

Above, the video for making cheese

Heres the video run-through on making Cream Cheese