Homemade cream cheese

1
03:20

Do you love to spread a thick layer of cream cheese on your toast? Then try this homemade version of creamy fresh cheese.

The great thing about making your it yourself is that you have complete control over what you add to it. If you’re serving it to very young children, you can leave out the salt and if you’re serving it to adults, you can experiment with different flavours, such as a version with paprika or how about one with garlic and chives?

Temperature control makes it super easy to make homemade cream cheese from scratch. It’s really very simple, you just heat up buttermilk and heavy cream slowly. Then keep it at a constant temperature for 3 hours – and this part Ztove does for you. And then the cheese just needs to drain.

It takes a while to make cheese, but most of the time is resting time. Note that the whey needs to drain off overnight, so plan well in advance if you want to have the cheese ready for breakfast.

Ingredients

Homemade Cream Cheese

1 l Buttermilk

0.25 l Heavy cream 38%

3 tsp. Salt , can be omitted

Steps

1
Heat the buttermilk and cream
Mix all the ingredients in the 3-liter pot and whisk to combine. If you are making it for very young children, omit the salt, otherwise add salt along with the milk and heavy cream.Switch to sous vide mode and set the temperature to 75 ºC. Let the mixture heat up. Avoid stirring while the mixture is heating, as it is important that the whey is allowed to separate slowly. Leave to cook at 75 ºC for 3 hours.
2
Drain the cheese curds
When the whey has separated from the cheese curds, it is time to strain the whey off.Using a slotted spoon or mesh spoon, carefully scoop the cheese curds into a sieve lined with a cheese cloth or a clean tea towel. Gather the ends of the cloth and wrap it tightly around the cheese, squeezing out most of the liquid.Transfer the strainer to a bowl or similar and place in the fridge. Leave the cheese to drain in the fridge overnight.
3
Season the cream cheese
Once the cream cheese has drained overnight, it is ready to eat. Transfer the cheese to a bowl and mix in your favourite spices. You can keep it simple and just keep it plain, adding a little salt if you haven't already. Or try adding chopped chives, finely grated garlic and pepper. You can also make homemade paprika cheese by mixing in onion powder and dried paprika.

Notes

The left over whey can be used in breads or buns. You can also try boiling it down to a thick, light brown whey sauce.

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