How to make PROCESSED CHEESE at Home

cityMONK

Is it possible to make some variants of processed cheese at home?
We normally make, cottage cheese or soft cheese (paneer), from
Split milk at home. I was wondering if cheese for pizza, sandwiches, e.t.c. can be made at home. I would love to know what tools, material and process is required, for various variants of these type of cheese.

thejag

ive been wondering about this as well...

Haylo

Yes, it can be made at home, it's not hard to make at all if you can find the rennet, though substitute rennet for making vegetarian cheese is going to be even harder to find.

The problem isn't likely to be in the making, but in the maturing. Good cheese takes a long time to mature, several years for the Cheddar I'm about to eat right now for instance, and you might find the necessary cool storage conditions hard to replicate. Certainly the commercially produced European style cheeses I've tried in India, even pretty expensive sorts, are nowhere near the quality you'd find in Europe.

I'm sure you'll find plenty of recipes for cheese such as Cheddar online, but doubt that you'll find one for "Processed" cheese, which is pretty disgusting rubbery stuff anyway in my view.

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Hal

In North America, processed cheese is a tiny bit of real cheese mixed with gelatin and food colouring and binding agents and chemicals - so I was wondering why on earth anyone would want to make it at home.

I guess what you're looking for is recipes for an aged mozzarella or farmer's cheese. I think making those is somewhat involved as Haylo says.

palerider

If you mean the processed stuff like in india, the stuff we aussies call "hard snot", then it's like Hal says,, impossible to get the chemicals and additives.
And why would you want to, you can just buy it at any supermarket.

No idea how to make Mozzarella, boconcini etc.

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machadinha

I'm absolutely sure a member here (and living in India, no less) once threw up an excellent recipe on homemade cheese (that he did, indeed, make there).

Thing is, how to find it back though... a search on just "cheese" throws up rather more than you can or might care to handle, of course (Whereas narrowing it down somehow I've been unsuccessful at so far I mean, I've sure tried.)

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machadinha

... In any case, should be easy to find out about on the web, and like the others said, drop the "processed" in your searches then, that is really a cussword in all cheese-loving nations; I'd start by looking for "homemade cheese," or +homemade +cheese +recipe or something (or insert name of cheese you intend to make, obviously. Etc.)

machadinha

Mozzarella btw and to my best knowledge is a soft (so not aged) cheese, preferably made from buffalo milk (mozzarella di bufala), sadly often substituted by cow milk to make an inferior product in Europe.

I imagine this would be not at all a bad start to have a go at cheese-making in India; probably just a slight development from making paneer even. I may be wrong though, never done it myself (nor ever made paneer yet, for that matter).

thejag

yes yes yes..... or any other kind of cheese more evolved than the run of the mill paneer.....

Hal

That's going to involve a bit of work. You need rennet and a starter culture and you have to put the cheese through several pressings, then age it in a fridge for a few months. You can find recipes for a basic cheddar online.

palerider

Mach, I'm likin' the new avatar.
Very bucolic.

machadinha

Ta, mate. That's an axe he's grinding, you see

(Bucolically speaking though, maybe there's something aptly cheesy about it. In a vain attempt to stay on topic, ahem.)

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| Hey lookie, Hal has a new avatar as well Very rustic, shall we say. Join the gang!
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cityMONK

Exactly looking for such kind of simple cheese. I hope farmer's cheese is not "paneer".Any way have you tried my recipe for "Gulabi Chai".Paneer we have made yesterday only, from buffalo milk and have, herbed it and is excellent as salad.

cityMONK

For pizza mozzarella is best bet.in india we have buffalo milk in plenty.mother dairy provides, buffalo milk, only to whole delhi.a recipe having slight deviation from paneer would be a welcome.

ageing for months can be a bit of non starter.
anyway pickels we age for around year.

machadinha

<cross-posting>

I think we're running into a lot of differences in expression here (I thought it was sort of childish of some above to harp on on the "processed" issue, I think it's clear what is asked about is "real" cheese, the processed variety being probably its closest approximation out there to many); but I reckon by "farmer's cheese" Hal meant any sort of "real" cheese.

Again, scour around the web, shouldn't be hard to find out about. And don't expect it to work on your first few tries, but then patience and trial & error makes the master, and all that.

(btw I don't think some famous Dutch cheeses need to ripen for very long, folks. And then cheddar, of all things -- do you realize what a joke that is here? )