Read on for my recipe for homemade crowdie
I love cheese, mature cheese, goat’s cheese, blue cheese and soft cheeses. One of the most famous cheeses from Scotland is a soft cheese called Crowdie. Keen readers will recall that I used this in my Cranachan Cheesecake recipe and in my book Simply Scottish Cakes & Bakes. Here I’m going to show you how to make homemade Crowdie with a great kit from The Big Cheese Making Kit .
I’ve always wanted to do a bit more in the way of cheese making after the success of my homemade Halloumi using their great kit that they kindly gave me in November. Well guess what folks, these enterprising people have brought out a new kit that doesn’t just help you to make one type of cheese, oh no, you can make eight different soft cheeses;
Mozzarella, Ricotta, Halloumi, Goat’s Cheese, Scottish Crowdie, Queso Blanco, Labneh and Paneer.
This Ultimate Cheese Kit is packed with all you need (apart from some fresh milk) to make eight different soft cheeses. There are plastic cheese baskets for shaping and draining, a thermometer, Rennet tablets, citric acid, organic sea salt, fine butter muslin herbs and spices for flavouring and a great little spiral bound recipe book packed with How-To’s, hints and tips and some great recipes for using your new cheeses.
No need for a kit
Rennet tablets are easily available online and also in some health food shops who do ingredients for cheese making. Citric acid is easy to find.
How to
- To make homemade crowdie you first have to dissolve 1/4 of a rennet tablet in 50ml of cooled boiled water and also dissolve 1 tsp of citric acid in 50ml of boiled and cooled water. Set these little bowls aside while you get on with heating the milk.
- While the recipe in the book is for a full 2lbs/900g of cheese I chose to half the quantity and just used 2 litres/2 pints of milk altogether and made mine a combination of standard blue top whole milk and gold top (unhomogenised) milk because that’s what I had on hand. Pour your choice of milk into a large high sided pan and heat gently till you reach 90F/32C. This is where the handy little dairy thermometer comes into play.
- Add half of the citric acid solution you made earlier (you’d use the whole lot if you were making the full batch of cheese and the same applies to the rennet solution) and mix in with a wooden spoon using an up and down motion instead of the normal swirl.
- Remove the pan from the heat, cover and let it sit for 30 minutes.
- Now add half the rennet mixture (remember I’m only making half the cheese) and again mix in using the up and down method for about 10 seconds.
- Put the pan back on the stove and heat the mixture to 105F/40C and keep it at this temperature for 3 minutes.
- The pan will be full of lumpy looking curds a bit like giant cottage cheese!
- Line a colander with the muslin and place this over a large bowl to catch the whey. Now very carefully pour the curds into the colander allowing the whey to drain into the bowl below.
- Leave for 15 minutes to drain and then add 1/2 tsp salt (a full tsp if you are making a full batch of cheese).
- As I wanted to make the traditional Scottish crowdie that is almost firm and served in a roll covered with oats and pepper, I chose to wrap the muslin around the curds and place a heavy jar on top (homemade yogurt in case you are interested) to press out as much liquid as possible.
- I then pulled off pieces of the cheese and rolled into balls slightly flattening them into patties.
- Mix some pinhead oatmeal with coursely ground black pepper and press the cheese pattie into the mix making sure it is completely covered. Do this with the rest of the cheese and then pop them in the fridge to set up a bit.
Serve your homemade crowdie with oatcakes, on toast or with crunchy French bread and some leafy salad on the side. For me it has to be oatcakes and slices of pear, perfect!
By the way don’t chuck out the whey you saved in the bowl, you can use this in all sorts of recipes from bread making and soups to smoothies and cooking pasta and rice. You can even use it as a bath treat and soak in it yourself for a great skin treat.
I’m thrilled with my homemade crowdie and can’t thank the great folks at The Big Cheese Making Kit enough for letting me try out this great product. I’ll definitely be making more cheese again soon!
Karon x
Homemade Crowdie and The Big Cheese Kit
Ingredients
- 1/4 tablet of vegetarian rennet
- 1 tsp citric acid
- 2 lt/2 pints whole milk
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 3 tbsp coursely ground black pepper
- 3 tbsp pinhead oatmeal
Instructions
- Dissolve 1/4 of a rennet tablet in 50ml of cooled boiled water and also dissolve 1 tsp of citric acid in 50ml of boiled and cooled water and set both aside.
- Gently heat the milk in a large pan to 90F/32C.
- Add half of the citric acid solution and mix in with a wooden spoon using an up and down motion instead of the normal swirl.
- Remove the pan from the heat, cover and let it sit for 30 minutes.
- Now add half the rennet mixture and again mix in using the up and down method for about 10 seconds.
- Put the pan back on the stove and heat the mixture to 105F/40C and keep it at this temperature for 3 minutes.
- The pan will be full of lumpy looking curds a bit like giant cottage cheese!
- Line a colander with the muslin and place this over a large bowl to catch the whey. Now very carefully pour the curds into the colander allowing the whey to drain into the bowl below.
- Leave for 15 minutes to drain and then add 1/2 tsp salt.
- As I wanted to make the traditional Scottish crowdie that is almost firm and served in a roll covered with oats and pepper, I chose to wrap the muslin around the curds and place a heavy jar on top (homemade yogurt in case you are interested) to press out as much liquid as possible.
- I then pulled off pieces of the cheese and rolled into balls slightly flattening them into patties.
- Mix some pinhead oatmeal with coursely ground black pepper and press the cheese pattie into the mix making sure it is completely covered. Do this with the rest of the cheese and then pop them in the fridge to set up a bit.
- Serve your homemade crowdie with oatcakes, on toast or with crunchy French bread and some leafy salad on the side. For me it has to be oatcakes and slices of pear, perfect!
Notes
PIN ME FOR LATER
I made this for the first time ..Unsuccessful..I found it tasteless and I went for the firm and crumbly method ..the texture was like over microwaved scrambled eggs …awful..I used unhomogenised milk.
Did you use Big Cheese Making Kit?
Mine worked fine using the Big Cheese Making Kit