Making Mozzarella or Cheesemaking Made Easy

Today I stopped in at the Montavilla Farmers Market and picked up a Mozzarella and Ricotta making kit from UrbanCheesecraft (she has a site on etsy www.urbancheesecraft.etsy.com). For $20 the kit comes with enough vegetarian rennet, cheese salt and citric acid for 30 batches of cheese. There's also a cheese thermometer and some cheesecloth.

I'd read about cheesemaking on the internet, and had looked at some mail order sites, so this seemed like a fair price and a fun project. I'd also made yogurt and labneh before, so while she also had kits for chevre or paneer, I felt like Mozzarella was the next step for me.

The pamphlet says you'll have mozzarella in about an hour, so I gave it a try. The instructions were clear and easy to follow. I used a gallon of whole milk and it made almost a pound of Mozzarella.

Here's a shot of the curds while they're cooking. This is about 20 minutes into the process:


The end result isn't very photogenic, but tasty:

She suggests you can add herbs, pepper flakes, or sun-dried tomatoes to the cheese to zest it up. I plan to try some tomato, mozzarella and basil paninis (I used some of the leftover whey to make some no-knead bread).

The kit was great! Check it out.