Flavour testing update, Manchego plans and I invented a new cheese!

Well I didn't really invent it. But I made it up on the spot with only a faint memory of what the recipe was supposed to actually be, and it turned out really yummy!

However firstly, the taste testing for the sheep milk substitute was a success. So now I am moving towards trialing some sheep flavour cheese. First on my list is a manchego. A good Spanish hard cheese which I have come to love over the past few months. So light, so sweet. In a few weeks I hope can write up a little more on that front. I think I have a recipe I am happy to work with so just need the time and the milk :)

Lemon Cheese - Alex style

Rowany Festival has just past and it had been my intent to make some cheese over the fire at our campsite whilst there (quark, semi-soft goats and a manchego). Master Owen had delightfully created my wanted cooking box, in collaboration with myself, however we'd no chance to test it before the event. So our test firing enlightened us to a slight flaw which caused the underside of the box to ignite! So I was unable to do any cheesing at the campsite (ignoring that I had also forgotten one small package that was in the freezer containing starters, rennet, lipase too...). Plans are now in the works to correct the problem with the firebox, should be a relatively simple fix (another layer of fire-brick to the bottom!).

 However my lovely Mistress Monique of all things Greasispoone-y, allowed me to invade the kitchen and cook up some random cheese with the milk I had taken with me and some lemons from the fridge. And so my lemon cheese is born. Very simple recipe which I have just replicated today, and added calcium chloride for a better yield.

6Lt unhomoginised milk
approx 5-6 medium lemons, juiced
3ml calcium chloride

Heat milk in a large pan to 32oC
Add calcium chloride
Stir for 1 minute
Add lemon juice
Stir for 1 minute
Cover and sit at 32oC until a clean separation of curd and whey is evident (about 30-40mins, whey/liquid should be greeny-yellow)
Spoon into a muslin lined strainer
Drain for 12hrs in the fridge (with or without a small weight to speed the process)
Use immediately, should keep for 4-5 days minimum

Now the cheese that I got from my first attempt was fairly plain but with a light, sweet after tang of lemon. The cheese was smooth but the lemon after left your mouth feeling fantastic.

So later on the day after making it, that lemon cheese became lemon cheesecake. And was subsequently demolished by all. Zomg was it yummy! So todays replication of my lemon cheese is also intended to become cheesecake, hopefully even half as yummy! A totally modern baked cheesecake recipe supplied by Mistress Monique, but I see a good future for this as a cheese tart for event cooking.

***UPDATE***

Just on the yield of the cheese with the addition of the calcium chloride.

The first batch I made was using 5Lt of milk and 5 smallish lemons. The yield was about 350 grams of cheese.

The second batch made using 6Lt of milk, 6 medium-ish lemons and 3ml of calcium chloride. Yield was 1.7Kg.

You can see from this very simple cheese that the process of pasteurization strips out a heck of a lot of the available calcium and decreases the yield significantly!!