I've been experimenting with making my own cream cheese (actually I think it would be called yogurt cheese) anyway I made some yesterday and then Patty e-mailed me her recipe for cream cheese brownies and NATURALLY I had to try them. Despite the fact that I had to take them out of the oven twice (yes twice) because I used the wrong size pan and then forgot the chocolate chips (hard to believe right?!) they smell delicious!
If you are interested in making your own yogurt, Greek yogurt, cream cheese, sour cream, ricotta cheese you might want to click on some of these links.
I used this one to make the yogurt
A Year of Slow Cooking: You can make yogurt in your crock pot
and got the idea for Greek yogurt from here:
Apron Strings: How to Make Your Own Greek Yogurt (Good News - It's a Cinch)
How to convert it to sour cream and cream cheese here:
Savvy Sister Shops: Use your powdered milk to make yogurt, sour cream and cream cheese
This is a great one about making your own yogurt / cream cheese (that I should have re-read before making mine)
Made by Lex: Making your own cream cheese couldn't be easier
Let me give you just a brief run through of what I actually did, how it turned out and what we are using the stuff we made for.
First the yogurt
7:30am - put 6 cups of 2 % milk and 1/2 cup powdered milk in the crock pot on low
10am - turned the pot off
1pm - removed 2 cups warm milk stirred into it, 1/2 cup plain yogurt (this is the starter), stirred that back into the crock pot, wrapped two big towels around the pot and let it sit on the counter for 8 hours.
9pm - lined a strainer with coffee filters and balanced it inside a bowl then poured the thickened (but still runny yogurt in) and put it all in the fridge, left it over night.
7:30am - next day used a ladle to scoop off 4 cups of rather thin yogurt, added vanilla a brown sugar and stored that in the fridge (it lasted until about noon - the kids loved it).
Scraped the thicker cream cheese like portion into a bowl (about 1 1/2 cups) used part of that for cream cheese brownies.
I had about 3 cups of whey (the yellow liquid that drains out of your yogurt left and I didn't want to just throw it away so after a few google searches I got the idea that I could use it in bread.
I substituted it for all of the water in one of my favorite bread recipes. It has a slightly sour taste (not as strong as sour dough but nice) and with the added protein from the whey (great for sneaking some protein into my kids).
I used this one to make the yogurt
A Year of Slow Cooking: You can make yogurt in your crock pot
and got the idea for Greek yogurt from here:
Apron Strings: How to Make Your Own Greek Yogurt (Good News - It's a Cinch)
How to convert it to sour cream and cream cheese here:
Savvy Sister Shops: Use your powdered milk to make yogurt, sour cream and cream cheese
This is a great one about making your own yogurt / cream cheese (that I should have re-read before making mine)
Made by Lex: Making your own cream cheese couldn't be easier
Let me give you just a brief run through of what I actually did, how it turned out and what we are using the stuff we made for.
First the yogurt
7:30am - put 6 cups of 2 % milk and 1/2 cup powdered milk in the crock pot on low
10am - turned the pot off
1pm - removed 2 cups warm milk stirred into it, 1/2 cup plain yogurt (this is the starter), stirred that back into the crock pot, wrapped two big towels around the pot and let it sit on the counter for 8 hours.
9pm - lined a strainer with coffee filters and balanced it inside a bowl then poured the thickened (but still runny yogurt in) and put it all in the fridge, left it over night.
7:30am - next day used a ladle to scoop off 4 cups of rather thin yogurt, added vanilla a brown sugar and stored that in the fridge (it lasted until about noon - the kids loved it).
Scraped the thicker cream cheese like portion into a bowl (about 1 1/2 cups) used part of that for cream cheese brownies.
 |
| Cream cheese brownies with the cream mixed in rather than swirled in, that's what happens if you change pans mid-way, still oh so yummy. |
I had about 3 cups of whey (the yellow liquid that drains out of your yogurt left and I didn't want to just throw it away so after a few google searches I got the idea that I could use it in bread.
 |
| liquid whey (I used the other 2 cups in bread) |
I substituted it for all of the water in one of my favorite bread recipes. It has a slightly sour taste (not as strong as sour dough but nice) and with the added protein from the whey (great for sneaking some protein into my kids).
