dairy queen

milk and cream simmering

last week i decided to try my hand at making two types of dairy products: cream cheese and yogurt.

draining the cream cheese

i did the cream cheese first. it was pretty easy with lots of passive time waiting for the whey to drain from the curds.

cream cheese!

after the 24hr draining time you peel off the cheesecloth and stir. so simple and easy!

it was so good that we had to get bagels the next morning. it was creamier and more prone to melting than commercial cream cheeses that i've had. we were enjoying it until yesterday morning when it started tasting a bit sour. the recipe i used said it should be good for 1-2 weeks, but this was only four days old. maybe i did something wrong?

yogurt activating in the crock pot

on sunday i made yogurt. i really like the cream top on the whole milk yogurt that Brown Cow makes and, after a bit of research, learned that all you need for cream top yogurt is milk that hasn't been homogenized. i had a half gallon of raw milk that i'd used part of for the cream cheese, so making cream top yogurt with the rest seemed meant to be! i used this recipe for vanilla yogurt, only i cut it in half, and i didn't do the straining part. none of us are big plain yogurt eaters. i know it's better not to eat all of that sugar, but plain yogurt topped with fruit just doesn't do it for me. at least this way i can control how much sugar goes in there. i also used a packet of gelatin to thicken it up. next time i'll add a little less gelatin, but more sugar and vanilla. 

it turned out beautifully! i love seeing all of these lovely little jars in the fridge. 

yummy!