November 02, 2016

Quark cheese - A love I thought lost


If you ever lived in one of the following countries - Austria, Germany  or Switzerland, you might have grown fond of a type of cream cheese called Topfen or Quark. If you now live abroad and miss it, you need to suffer no more!




For those that are curious, what I am talking off, look here!

Quark cheese is the base for a lot of very yummy dishes, sweet and savoury, in above mentioned countries

I have made Quark the old fashioned way, without rennet. I read that today it is only made with rennet to save time when commercially produced, but the real deal is made without. It is a little bit milder than the shop bought one, but very creamy and delicious! And on the plus side you will get a lot of fresh whey. 

So here is how you make your own Quark

Boil a big glas jar to sterilise it. It should be big enough to hold about a litre/quart. You have to work very clean to make this work!

Fill the 1 litre/quart of Milk straight from the fridge into your jar.
Add 6 Tablespoons of Buttermilk as a starter culture. Stir with a boiled/sterilsed  spoon or fork. Cover with a clean towel at room temperature, and set a timer for 48h later.  Yes, now you have to let it patiently rest for 2 days!

48 hours later you boil a Towel, strainer and big jug. Your Quark at this stage will have set. Put your strainer on your jug. Line it with your cloth and pour your pre-quark into the cloth. And drain whey of quark for at least 12h. Towards the end, you should not just "hang" it in a strainer, but actually HANG it, as that really gets the last bit of whey out.


And VoilĂ , there is your Quark cheese! Now you can get started with all your favourite uses for it!

And as a little extra treat, you will get quiet a lot of fresh whey!

I have made this 4 times now, and it turned out like a charm every time! So I believe this is safe to share now!

Enjoy and I hope this makes you as happy as me!



18 comments:

  1. What do you use your whey for?

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  2. Also......... do you leave it out of the fridge for the entire 48 hours?

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  3. Hi Charles, Yes I leave it at room temperature (here around 20C), I wouldn't dare doing this in a much hotter environment! I usually use the whey for bread baking, use it instead of the water in the recipes.... For the draining part I put it in a cold spot. Our conservatory is around 5C at the moment, so I just leave it on the table there....it is like a gigantic fridge... real fridge space is very limited in this house!

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  4. Wow I've never even heard of this! I bet our German foreign exchange student would've loved this when she was missing her food from home!

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  5. So awesome, my husband is a cheese monger so I am definitely going to show this to him. Nice to meet a fellow cheese lover.

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    1. Cheese is a big staple in this house ;) hope your husband enjoys this

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  6. I know of Quark but never had the real deal, so will make this. What fat percentage is your milk? Oh I have made lemonade with whey, was good.

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    1. I started our ginger bug with whey, but never actually made lemonade with it, I must give it a try. Thanks for the inspiration! The milk I use has 3.8% fat. I hope you´ll enjoy your quark :)

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  7. I love quark! Especially in summer. I just mix it with some fruits and eat it as a desert.

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  8. I've never heard of Quark but it looks fairly easy to make. I like the idea of having it with fruit.

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    1. It is pretty simple. And with fruit is really one of my fav desserts. It is great for using up ripe bananas...

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  9. I've never even heard of this before, but I'll have to try it! :D Thanks for sharing it!

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  10. All of the other recipes I have read so far say to heat the milk, yours does not? Or did I miss it in your instructions?

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    1. I made by heating and cooling milk, but the recipe I used didn’t say anything about sterilizing all implements first, it also didn’t take as long to thicken.

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  11. I hardly hAd any whey and it turned out very thick and wonderful. Hmmm, why no whey

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