Milk, Butter, Cheese & Brioche

Milking the cow has been going well still. I now have lots of milk in the fridge I need to do something with.

I have been drawing off about half the cream from each days milking and holding it aside in the fridge. Today I finally had time to make some butter with it. I don't have an old fashion paddle butter churn (although I would love to have one someday) so I made do with what I have. I poured the cream into the blender, replaced the top and turned it on until the cream broke and I could see the buttermilk and butter separate. I poured off the buttermilk into a bowl for another use. The butter I placed into a separate bowl. I now needed to wash the butter to remove the last of the buttermilk trapped within, this allows the butter to last longer. I poured ice water into the butter bowl and smashed the butter against the side of bowl. I drained the water into the sink and repeated several times until the water remained clear and no more buttermilk remained in the butter. I added a bit of salt, mixed it in and then a taste test... yumm!

Once the butter was in the fridge I took a recipe out of my cookbook, "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day", for Brioche dough. I mixed it up using the buttermilk leftover from my butter making in place of the water called for in the recipe. Once mixed up it needed to set out to rise for 2 hours and then into the fridge until later tonight.

Next up, I attempted to make some mozzarella cheese with a gallon and a half of Cherry Blossom's milk. It was the first time I have tried mozzarella and it was an utter disaster! I think it was mostly caused by trying to make such a time/temperature sensitive cheese while also doing the normal "mom" things that still needed to be done. Anyway, the chickens seemed to like the soft mush that resulted. I will try again when I have enough extra milk in the fridge.

The last task this evening was to take the brioche dough from the fridge and make it into sticky buns to bake off in the morning. I rolled them up, sliced them into rounds, placed them into baking dishes and stashed them back in the fridge to slowly rise overnight. 40 minutes in the oven in the morning and we will have fresh sticky buns for breakfast!

Night...

Milking Cherry Blossom

I haven't mentioned much about my daily milking sessions with our Irish Dexter cow Cherry Blossom as it has been going really well and I didn't want to jinx it. But, since it has been a week and half now and all is well I thought I might be out of the woods.

I have been consistently been getting 2-2 1/2 quarts a day. That is with only one milking in the morning and Cherry Blossom is 7 months into her lactation. Not too bad at all! In fact I am quite happy I am not getting MORE milk. I am not sure what I would do with it all!

The 2 quarts I got this morning were first low heat pasteurized (I am nursing the baby so I am not going raw for now) and then one quart went to making strawberry yogurt and the other quart made a cappuccino chocolate chip ice cream (recipe from an old Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream cookbook I have).

It was Neil's birthday yesterday and since he was at work all day we celebrated this afternoon instead. The ice cream joined some from scratch chocolate brownies, fresh whipped cream and sprinkles in lieu of cake.

While I was in the kitchen working with the milk I also spooned the curds from last nights goat milk cheese making into the six cheese molds to drain. This is the first time I have used the molds instead of hanging the whole batch in butter muslin to drain. I am interested to see what the difference will be.

Honey Cream Goat's Milk Soap

I found some time to mix up a new batch of goat's milk soap while the baby was sleeping today. It used up the last of the frozen goat's milk plus a bit a fresh as well. This batch is a honey cream. It was the most pretty bright yellow when I poured it into the soap mold. But after a few hours of curing the heat generated during the soponification process darkened the milk some. It think it will end up being the lightest in color of the soaps I have made but still not that pretty yellow color when done.

It will be ready to cut into bars after 24-48 hours.

Feta Cheese

So, an update on my Feta Cheese.

After the curds hung over night and drained the resulting firm ball of cheese was cut into large chunks (about 2-3 on each side) and placed into a container and salted heavily with kosher salt. I then covered it with a tea towel and let it set at room temp for two days. Several times each day I drained off the excess whey that formed from the salting and resalted the cheese if it looked as if it needed more to keep the sides covered.

After the two days at room temp I moved the cheese to the refrigerator to finish draining and to dry the surface of the cheese. By this point the cheese was very firm to the touch.

After the cheese "felt" right (firm and crumbly) I taste tested a small piece and it was the perfect saltiness. I cut the large chunks into smaller one inch pieces and packed them into mason jars with a bay leaf, dried chili pepper, chopped garlic, oregano, thyme and basil and topped off the jars with olive oil. These can be left at room temp if desired but I chose to refrigerate mine.

The biggest difference with this batch then the failed batch I made last year was that I dry salt cured it this time instead of salt brining. Last years cheese just got soft and dissolved in the brine... the dry salting worked much better for me and I love the result!

Looking forward to using it on pizza, salad and just for snacking!