Cultured Cream Cheese without rennet
Very easy method to make one ingredient cream cheese from fermented dairy without using additional cultures or rennet.
Ingredients
- Sour cream any amount, preferably homemade
- Or - an equal mixture of sour cream and kefir, ryazhenka or yogurt
Instructions
- Place sour cream (or sour cream and whatever else you are using) in the freezer for 24 hours.
- When ready to make cultured cream cheese, place a fine strainer (large enough to fit all your stuff) over a bowl.
- Remove the sour cream from the freezer, and put it into the strainer upside down; remove the storage container when the sour cream thaws a little.
- Cover, and leave at room temperature for 24 hours. During that time, whey (yellowish liquid) will drip into the bowl (if you are unsure about the quality of your initial cultured dairy, or are new to lactic fermentation, you can keep it in the refrigerator while it's draining).
- Transfer cultured cream cheese from the strainer into a container and mix well. You can salt it and add your favorite herbs, or honey. It will thicken more in the refrigerator.
Notes
- Raw dairy will produce firmer and better tasting cream cheese. I know it can be hard to find raw dairy and it's not legal to sell in many states but there is always a way to find it. I live in Illinois where raw milk regulations are very strict but there are places that sell it; for example I get it from an Amish store that sells it labeled 'for pets, not human consumption' that I found through Yelp.
- If you use pasteurized dairy, make sure it's not ultra-pasteurized or homogenized because (besides being too processed to be anywhere close to a real food) the protein structure in that stuff is too out of wack to make good cheese. In commercial cheese making, calcium chloride (a toxic man-made chemical) is used to correct the balance between calcium and protein.