More notes on this cheese-making malarkey

So, let's start with the edifying and good: Last night I made 2 tiny simple supper dishes just for me - broad beans with bacon and cream, and the first tiny courgettes avec flowers, sliced, fried briefly in garlic, tipped onto toasted sourdough, drizzled with yoghurt and gaily scattered with basil and mint. Delicious. A triumph, my dear.

All of which is a delaying tactic, you may think. Well, you're right. Where were we? Oh yes, watching the goats cheese drain its life blood away over 2 days and 2 nights. So drained was it, that the end result was a mere 100g of cheese. Delicate, delicious, fresh, not very goaty-y, but definitely on the side of paucity. Now I am at a loss to explain this, following the instructions as exactly as I did. I even took a quick survey of the temperature of my finger to see if I was too unstable to estimate body temperature, but no, I'm reasonably normal. I went back to the ingredients, and lo - the rennet's expiry date is July 2009. Now my instinct is to say it's a bit like dried yeast, which gets panicky at least a month before its expiry date and so our baking cupboard is littered with half-finished packs of fainthearted yeast. It's the only thing I can think of, so I am going to email old Hugh and see if they think this could be the reason....

Anyway, back to the story. This somewhat surprising result left me 650g of cheese to the worse. Consequently, it had to be bought, which - let me add - ain't cheap, so if you're making this recipe with bought goats cheese, think carefully, cos it came to about £15 in the cheese shop (not a famous one). It was salted, but not too much and fresh and tangy in a way/whey (ha) that would hopefully enliven my pallid contribution.

Mixed the goats cheeses, 2 whisked eggs, 75g sugar (no semolina or oatmeal - who wants a sandy cheesecake?) and baked it (without base) in the oven for about 25 mins at I think 170C. And the result was good. It was a little dense, but that was to be expected and quite tangy, but cooking does bring out the goat taste, to the extent that MCD - who is an ardent goat fan on many levels - felt it a bit OTT and didn't really come back for seconds.

I will be posting a photo of the finished result. Feelings on this particular experiment - far too much hassle for a cheesecake, but for making your own cheese, it's low-effort and easy. Just watch your rennet.

Notes from an amateur cheesemaker

I've found this short series of River Cottage a bit more engaging than they have been of late, although I wish I could get my hands on Hugh's scripts - good grief... Anyway, last week I was completely inspired by his goats cheese making and turning said cheese into a baked cheescake.
I downloaded the recipe from the site and it's so simple - goats milk and rennet. That's it.

So, ingredients purchased, I got cheese-ifying. I heated the milk to a body-temperature 37C, removed it from the heat and added the rennet according to the instructions - 10 drops per pint, therefore roughly 35 drops. I gave it a quick stir and went off to read in the garden for the recommended 15 minutes while the curd and whey separated.

20 minutes later, the whole is still decidedly liquid. I checked the instructions, made a phone call to my colleague, who's done this kind of thing before, whose advice was 'give it a bit longer and add some lemon juice' and left it for another 20 minutes. I tried slicing a knife through it and the knife scored remained - looking more hopeful. I tested a bit by adding a spoonful to a sieve (on the premise that if it doesn't slip through the sieve, we're good to go with the muslin...). It held. So, dear reader (I can feel the hot breath of your anticipation on the back of my neck... go away), I lined a sieve with muslin and spooned it in. I wasn't hopeful - like really loose blancmange. I'm not entirely sure Hugh's estimate is spot-on - Christ knows what he put in his, although I wouldn't blame the cheese for getting a move on if it thought it was on TV.

I let it drip through for a good half-hour before taking it upstairs and hanging it from an elaborate contraption involving a bamboo cane, a stepladder, the bed and a large bowl - it's still there this morning. There is a lot of whey, people, a lot of whey.... And not much bloody cheese in the muslin, so my doubts about the rennet remain and now my fear is I shall have to sully my virginal goats cheese with shop-bought...

I'm making the cake itself on Saturday for a BBQ. At this stage, it may just be a small mound of goats cheese and some poached gooseberries for pudding, but you never know. I may be able to do a Marie Antoinette and let there be cake.