Cheese Dips

Garlic & Parsley

Before this post goes to far, I must confess that I have done one experimented with making Boursin again and not posted the results. I had roughly the same result as last time; the only improvement being the texture and flavor were a little better, primarily because I finally used cultured buttermilk.

With the fall season upon us and Halloween approaching my wife and I got the itch to experiment with a discovery from last fall, Pumpkin Butter. I will have to get my wife to post the recipe. It's good, and last year we made a really fun treat with it by simply adding cream cheese to make it creamier. We decided for our Halloween/Fall party it would be fun to add our Neufchatel instead of store bought cream cheese.

I got curious on what the difference between neufchatel (I also learned it is called farmers cheese) and normal cream cheese was, so I did some research. It appears that cream cheese, surprise, has more cream added to it. I decided to try adding some cream to the neufchatel recipe to see what kind of a difference it would make, the result was pleasing.

Ingredients:
Milk:

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

Buttermilk:

• Quantity: 1/8 cup - 1/4 cup or more 
• Brand: Meijer (Regional Store) generic. 
• Other attributes: Cultured, Lowfat (1%), Grade A 

Whipping Cream(You should probably use heavy cream):

• Quantity: 1/2 cup 
• Brand: Dean's: Since 1925 
• Other Attributes: Grade A, Ultra-Pasteurized

Other Ingredients:

• 1/8 tsp. (4-6 drops) Organic Vegetable Rennet. Double Strength Plus, Gluten Free, Non-GMO 
• 1/8 C. water 
• 1/2 tsp. salt 
• 2/3 c. pumpkin butter (added to pumpkin butter batch) 
• 1 tsp. garlic powder (added to garlic batch) 
• 1/2 tsp. dried parsley (Added to garlic batch) 

Steps & Notes:

1. Buttermilk: Using cultured buttermilk has proven to make a huge difference. In the past I tried substituting it for milk + lemon juice and it just didn't work. 
2. Mix Buttermilk w/ Milk: I wasn't very strict on my measurements this time around. I started with 1/8th of a cup of buttermilk, but I added another 1-8 to 1/4 Cup. I don't remember the exact amount because I was just eyeballing it. 
3. Mixed in Cream: All the recipes I read said to use heavy cream. All we had in the fridge was whipping cream. I decided to try it out, just to see what happened. I kind of just winged the measurement. I don't remember the exact measurement, but it was 1/4-1/2 cup of whipping cream. 
4. Warm milk: Warmed milk to 65° F 
5. Add Rennet: I added 1/8 tsp. of rennet (Which was pre-mixed into 1/8c. of cold water). 
6. Let Sit: I let it sit for about 20 hours covered and mostly undisturbed at room temperature (I can't really confirm that because it was on the stove and my wife did do a lot of cooking while I was at work). 
7. Cut Curd: I thought because I let it sit for so long the curd would be nice and firm. It wasn't. It was very delicate and didn't keep it's form at all. I was able to cut it into 1/2 inch curds, but I couldn't ladle them out without them disintegrating. 
8. Strain/Drain Whey: I poured the whole pot into a handkerchief and and let it strain for about 2 days. I probably should have left it another day because I wasn't able to get rid of a lot of the whey before putting it in the cheese cloth it was still very moist. My wife liked the consistency that resulted though. I believe this is where the difference between the final product being spreadable vs. dip-able was made. 
9. Add Salt: I added about 1/2 tsp. of salt into the cheese 
10. Mixed in flavoring: As I mentioned at this point I have been splitting the cheese into different container and trying different flavoring. 

• In the first container I added some of my wife's pumpkin butter to one. The end result was a sweet, creamy dip with a slight pumpkin spice flavor. A surprisingly good dip for pretzels and I would imagine good on toast. 
• In the second container I went the boursin route with garlic powder, a little more salt, and dried parsley. I still got the garlic a little strong, but still tasted good. It was a great pretzel/chip dip. 
• With the leftover I just left it plain. 

Results:

• Taste: Good. The garlic batch was still slightly too garlic-y, but overall people liked the flavor. The Pumpkin was excellent. 
• Texture: It was a very smooth and consistent texture. Smooth and creamy like a vegetable dip, but a bit thicker. It reminded me of some cheese I used in Brazil called, requeijão. The pumpkin butter batch was a little more liquid because the pumpkin butter diluted the thick creamy texture a bit. 
• I would give it an overall rating of about 5 stars. 

Pumpkin Butter

Possible Improvements:

• Use less garlic. 
• Work out the exact measurement of cream, buttermilk. 
• Figure out how to get a more solid curd.

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.