Tuesday, November 25, 2008

D.I.Y. Cream Cheese


One of the T-day desserts I'll be making today is Roasted Sweet Potato Cheesecake. Cheesecake means I need lots of cream cheese. This year I want to avoid conventional cream cheese (full of stabilizers and made under intense pressure and heat) and got the more natural route. I found a recipe and went to town. It is shockingly easy and very delicious.

Homemade Cream Cheese

1 quart homemade or store-bought plain whole-milk yogurt

Instructions

Place a clean kitchen towel (one of those super thin tea towels) or clean muslin in a colander. Place the colander in a bowl that is large enough to hold it. Add the yogurt to the lined colander and use a plate to cover. Leave this to drain for 10-12 hours on the counter. Scoop out your cream cheese and enjoy!

Your cream cheese will last as long as your yogurt would, so if you used purchased yogurt, check the expiration date and use that as your guide.

If you want to get fancy, you can add flavorings to your cream cheese. Try adding strawberry jam for strawberry-flavored cream cheese. Or chives and onions for a savory treat.

P.S. That yellow liquid that you'll find at the bottom of your bowl is called whey. Save it! I'll tell you soon how you can use it.

3 comments:

Cannon and Kassie said...

I've done this to make a veggie dip. You can also use cheese cloth or a paper towel which I did b/c I didn't have cheese cloth : )

Anonymous said...

Do you have the cheesecake recipe posted? It sounds great!

Alicia said...

Here's a link to the recipe:

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1119574