Attempted Boursin from Neufchatel

My sister-in-law pulled out some Boursin at her husbands birthday party we had on the 4th of July. It was delicious and inspiring. I left with my mind already decided to try and make some for our get together the next day.

After looking around on the internet, I decided to go with a neufchatel base, with added herbs. Many of the recipes I saw used cream cheese as a base then added butter, herbs, and spices. I decided to just try neufchatel because I couldn't find a good homemade cream cheese recipe. I didn't want to add extra butter, so I just left it out.

It was doomed from the start since I had never made neufchatel or boursin before and was in a hurry. The recipe I used is from Dr. Fankhauser and the details of what I did are below with more on the results at the end.

Ingredients:
Milk:

• Quantity: 1/2 Gallon
• Brand: Cub 2% Reduced Fat Milk.
• Notes: It says it's pasteurized, I don't know if it was ultra pasteurized. Grade A, Homogenized.

Other Ingredients:

• 1/8 tsp. Organic Vegetable Rennet. Double Strength Plus, Gluten Free, Non-GMO 
• 1/8 C. milk
• 1/8  Tbsp. of lemon juice
• 3 cloves of Garlic
• 3-4 Chives
• A few slices of Onion
• 1/4 cup Parsley ( I think)

Steps & Notes:

1. Buttermilk: I didn't have buttermilk so I mixed 1/8 Tbsp of lemon juice with 1/8 C. of milk. This seemed to be the general substitute for buttermilk I could find on the internet.
2. Mix Buttermilk w/ Milk: I added the 1/8c. of 'Buttermilk' to the 1/2 Gal. of milk
3. Warm milk: Warmed milk to 65° F 
4. Add Rennet: I added 1/8 tsp. of rennet (Which was pre-mixed into 1/8c. of cold water).
5. Let Sit: I let it sit for 4 hours covered and undisturbed at room temperature. The curd was a little soft, but proceeded anyway because I was short on time.
6. Cut Curd: I 1/2 inch curds.
7. Strained Curd: I put the curd in a handkerchief and and let it strain for a few hours. I tried to speed the process up by squeezing it at several points. 
8. Prepared Herbs: I mixed the garlic, onion, chives, and parsley in a cuisine-art. Measurements are estimates, I didn't really keep track of how much I put in.
9. Add Salt: I added about 1/2 to 1 tsp. of salt into cheese
10. Mixed Cheese & Herbs: I mixed part of the herb mix with a majority of the cheese. I left some out to see what the normal neufchatel would taste like.
11. Let sit: I let it all sit together for a few hours while more whey strained out.

Results:

• Plain Neufchatel Taste: It was really salty. The salt was over powering
• Herb 'Boursin' Taste: I put way to much garlic. I also over did it on the parsley not to mention I shouldn't have put in onion, the chives would have been enough..
• Texture: Somewhat moist, but more grainy and dry than creamy. It wasn't spreadable, it just kind of crumbled apart. I think partly due to trying to speed up the whey draining and also due to too much garlic, salt, etc...
• The people I shared it with at our picnic generally had good things to say, but curiously no one ate much more after their first try. A little 9 year old really liked it, he loved how garlicky it was.
• I would give it an overall rating of about 3 stars. 

Possible Improvements:

• Don't add as much salt.
• Don't use as much garlic.
• Leave out onions.
• Give myself more time so I can (1) let the curd setup more (2) let the whey drain off at a slower pace, hopefully making a smoother consistency
• Use real cultured buttermilk. I think you might really need the buttermilk cultures, not just the acidity, so a imitation like adding lemon juice to milk doesn't help you much.
• Try adding some butter to the neufchatel to achieve a richer Boursin imitation.