Whole Milk Ricotta Kit

Whole milk ricotta is a quick and easy cheese to make at home and a great starting point for a novice cheese maker.  Traditionally ricotta cheese is made by reheating the left-over whey from hard cheese making (a different methodology to this), but when it is made from whole milk it is high yielding, beautifully soft and creamy and a real treat.  This cheese is high in protein and calcium and very versatile.  Whether it be a whipped ricotta dip, filled cannelloni, moussaka topping or spread on breakfast toast with a drizzle of honey and walnuts to top, it never fails to delight.

This kit contains the following:

• Skimmer spoon
• Curd scoop
• Thermometer
• Culture measuring spoons
• 100g citric acid
• Ricotta basket
• Blue cheesecloth and 25g sachet of ‘No Rinse Sanitiser’ or swop out for a butter muslin cloth (this swop out must be requested in the ‘comments’ section when you order otherwise the default is blue cloth and sanitiser).
• Cheese salt (400g)
• Recipe sheet – very detailed instructions including the difference between sweet and savory ricotta, plus some trouble shooting points to allow you to refine your technique to master this cheese.

This cheese requires you to warm the milk to 88ºC, make a citric acid solution using sterile water (bottled or boiled and cooled) and then gradually add the solution to the heated milk to achieve a full curdle.  The curds are then drained off, a little baking soda and butter (and possibly salt) is forked in if desired, it is put in a ricotta basket to shape and then chilled and ready to eat after 1 hour or stored in the fridge for later.  A little added salt makes a savory ricotta.