The ultimate dinner party boast: We made our own cheese

THE days of a humble slab of supermarket Cheddar satisfying the taste buds of the average British family are over. Thanks to farmers’ markets, and artisan cheese stalls, if the Wensleydale isn’t handmade they just aren’t interested.

However, posh cheese is expensive — no wonder people are having a go at making it themselves at home.

Lakeland now sells kits that it reckons will walk even a novice through the process for producing both hard and soft varieties.

RACHEL HALLIWELL used them to put her cheesemaking skills to the test.

CHESHIRE

GROWING up in the heart of Cheshire’s dairy-farming community, this is a cheese I know and love. So I attempt it first.

Cheesemaking boils down to removing the water (whey) from milk before salting and shaping the resulting solid mass (curds), and squeezing it dry.

I use a Mad Millie Homemade Hard Cheese Making Kit, which contains everything I need to sterilise my equipment, separate the curds from the whey then press them into a cheese round.

My kitchen soon resembles a science lab, with pipettes, thermometers and tiny measuring spoons as I heat the milk and drop in various additives at key moments to aid the separation process.

Over the next six hours I add drops of calcium chloride — a salt solution to help firm the curd — and a powdered culture that turns the natural sugars in the milk to lactic acid, for that tangy flavour.

Later I add rennet, an enzyme that curdles the milk, before cutting, draining, salting and turning the resulting curd.

For the first part of the process I get hourlong waits in between the action when I can get on with other things.

But the last two hours see me turning my curds every 15 minutes. A baby requires less attention.

Pressing the cheese is simple — it goes into a mould to drain overnight, before pressure is exerted via a small plate and a screw-down spring for two days. I have to turn the cheese each morning.

By the time my cheese is pressed and has a thick, dry crust — meaning it’s ready to be dipped into melted wax — a week has passed. And I’m sick of the sight and smell of it. I pop it into a cool place to mature for three weeks. PREPARATION TIME: A week to make, press and dry. At least three more weeks to mature. COST: £6 for a half-kilo wheel — half that at a farmer’s market. DIFFICULTY: A tedious — rather than tricky — process. APPEARANCE: Impressive. My waxed wheel wouldn’t look out of place at a farmer’s market. TASTE: We eat it at 21 days when it tastes mild yet tangy and crumbles in the mouth, unlike shop versions: 9/10 VERDICT: Like childbirth, the pain was forgotten as soon as we tried the fruits of my labour.

LEICESTER

THE process is similar to Cheshire. Its orange colour comes from annatto dye.

The biggest problem I face is that my curds won’t set. PREPARATION TIME: Three days to make, press and dry out, then another three weeks minimum before eating. COST: £6 for a half-kilo wheel. DIFFICULTY: Trickier and you can’t get much else done. APPEARANCE: More like a shiny Edam than firm, dry Leicester. TASTE: Awful. Rubbery and flavourless: 2/10. VERDICT: I’m certain it all went wrong when the curds didn’t set and I used too much rennet — a common cause of rubbery cheese. We binned it.

HALLOUMI

THE children are big fans of this unripened Cypriot- style cheese, which they eat fried with eggs for breakfast.

The instructions in BBC Good Food columnist Gerard Baker’s book How To Make Soft Cheese are simple.

I heat three litres of milk to 95c, stir in 90 ml of white wine vinegar, turn off the heat and wait.

Over the next few minutes I watch as a float of curd forms. I skim off the solids, drain them in a muslin- lined colander, sprinkle with salt and chuck in chopped parsley and press into a plastic mould. PREPARATION TIME: A mere 20 minutes. COST: £3 for five large slices. I’ve paid similar for an inferior supermarket version. DIFFICULTY: Easy. A ten-yearold could do this. APPEARANCE: More appealing than any I’ve bought. TASTE: Lovely and fresh, with a perfect ‘squeaky’ bite: 10/10. VERDICT: Wow. I’ll always make my own from now on.

HERB-CRUSTED SOFT CHEESE

I’M using Lakeland’s Lekue Microwave Cheese Maker. The process is so simple that the instructions are in pictures rather than words.

The kit is just three parts: a small bowl, inside which sits a slatted cheese mould plus lid.

A litre of milk goes into the bowl and is blasted in the microwave for 14 minutes before I add 30ml of lemon juice. Half an hour later, I drain the curdled milk through the mould then press it down.

The mould goes back inside the bowl, with the lid on, and continues to drain and firm up for an hour in the fridge. Finally, I roll the shaped soft cheese in fresh, chopped herbs. PREPARATION TIME: One hour and 50 minutes, but most of that was waiting time. COST: £2.95 compared to a £2 Boursin cheese half the size. DIFFICULTY: The hardest part was chopping the herbs. APPEARANCE: Impressive. TASTE: The lack of effort here is reflected in the taste — it was bland, saved only by the freshness of the herbs: 2/10. VERDICT: I won’t make this again, no matter how easy.

MOZZARELLA

WE GET through loads of expensive mozzarella, so a cheap homemade version could save me money.

Gerard Baker has a microwave recipe he promises will be quick and easy. It’s quick, but not so easy.

The first steps are simple — heat the milk, add lemon juice and rennet then leave the curd to set before cutting and draining.

I salt them, before dividing up into four portions, and blast each for 30 seconds in the microwave.

This is supposed to melt them, turning the protein they contain into mozzarella, after which they can be pulled and rolled into balls.

But I’m just left with a chalky mass nothing like mozzarella.

The book says if this happens to blast it again in the microwave and try again. Still no luck. I’m left with a cheese more like a lump of ricotta than a shiny ball of mozzarella. PREPARATION TIME: One hour. COST: £3.50 compared to £3.80 for a similar amount at Ocado. DIFFICULTY: Impossible. APPEARANCE: A lumpy mess. TASTE: Surprisingly pleasant. A lovely lemony ricotta: 6½/10. VERDICT: The trouble-shooting section of the book blames my ricotta consistency on weak curds, but I’m not sure how I’d have made them stronger. It wasn’t wasted — I added it to a macaroni cheese.

CREAM CHEESE

COMBINING and heating half a litre each of full-fat milk and single cream before adding 200ml of live yoghurt is as complicated as this recipe from Gerard’s book gets.

After half an hour I have a firm curd that drains overnight in a muslin-lined colander. By morning I’m slathering fresh cream cheese on a bagel. PREPARATION TIME: 45 minutes, plus overnight draining. COST: £2.90 compared to £2.40 for a large tub of Philadelphia. DIFFICULTY: Simplicity itself. APPEARANCE: Creamy and fresh looking. TASTE: Oh boy. I add chopped chives and create heaven on a cracker: 10/10. VERDICT: Such great results. I’ll make this time and again.

MAD Millie Homemade Hard Cheese Making Kit £89.99; Lekue Microwave Cheese Maker £18.99; How To Make Soft Cheese by Gerard Baker £3.99 — all available from lakeland.co.uk.