Cream Cheese Starter Culture

Tired of limited availability of cream cheese so I thought I would try my hand at this. There are recipes online for cream cheese using vinegar or lemon juice but they clearly are not authentic. I found this product and made a batch as per the easy included instructions. I used 2 qts. of ordinary pasteurized whole milk and 1 qt. of light cream, ultra pasteurized. After twelve hours, I poured the product into a very clean pillowcase. With everything in the far corner, I twisted the pillowcase and hung it up from the faucet spout of a sink. It took an honest 10 hours to drain. I spooned out and salted to taste. Easy! Delicious! Fun! Makes over 3 cups of cream cheese. Texture is great. It is softer than supermarket "brick" cream cheese and firmer than whipped cream cheese, which for me is perfect. A bit more tart than supermarket stuff but absolutely delicious.

No fuss cream cheese. I’ll add my slacker-cheese-maker short cut tips. 1. Gallon WHOLE milk. (I did not use any cream and it turned out nice and creamy) 2. Pour a cup or so out of the gallon. 3. Let the gallon come to room temp and make sure milk hits 85 degrees. Do this slowly. It is summer here so after it got to 78 room temp, it didn’t take anything more than to set it in the sink in a hot water bath to get it to 85. 4. Put the packet of cheese starter in the gallon of milk- 1 cup or so already taken out. Give it a very quick “up and down” shake. 5. Set it on the counter and wait 12 hours. 6. Pour contents into a strainer lined with cheese cloth. I left mine overnight to drain in the sink. 7. In the morning transfer to a new cheese cloth and HANG it up. While you are at work. 8. Transfer to a clean container and refrigerate. Ladies and gentlemen it does not get any easier, yummier or ECONOMICAL. I can’t wait to try this company’s other cheese making packets. This was my first attempt and it was awesome!!!! PS: if you hate dishes and extra work like I do, remember I made this with nothing more than the gallon container the milk came in and a strainer.

This is fun to make and turns out quite well. I used whole pasteurized milk and some ultra pasteurized cream. It turned into yogurt after the first 12-24 hours and then after a bit more aging it turned into the cream cheese. Yummy, with out all of the added stabilizers which I am allergic to. This made about 5 cups of cream cheese out of 2 quarts of whole milk and about a cup of leftover cream. Strained the cultured yogurt/cream cheese through a kitchen towel. Worked fine first time around. Then made cream cheese garlic spread and green onion (from a packaged mix). These cheese spreads are great on crackers for a quick snack.

Good.

Not only was the Cream Cheese delicious! But it was also a super fun project to make! I made bagels, too. Next time, I think I’d like to have the full spread! With lox, onions, tomatoes, and capers! Because I still have enough culture to make several more batches!’n