Age your cheese at home!
For those who would like to experience the magic of making their own cheese, the kit and videos (or cards) opens up a window to what it means to pour white milk into an empty pan, slowly heat it up, add rennet and witness the magical transformation of the liquid into a beautiful, bright white gel, the curds. Then to realise how this curd, with the small differences in its handling can become such different end results, a fresh curd cheese or a hard pressed cheese. It’s beauty, the mindfulness of watching this charming process and its the empowerment of saying..I made my own cheeses!
I'm Paula. A designer gone cheese maker. I come from Latin America and have lived in a total of five countries, now for 15 years in The Netherlands. Food has always been my happy place, the place where I connect with my memories of places I love. Making my own cheese brought that to another level, it made me feel empowered to connect with memories I thought were out of my reach. This is why I began making porcelain cheese moulds, then selling Mexican cheeses and this is why I offer cheese making workshops to share this amazing feeling with you!
Curd cheese
This curd cheese recipe comes from a cheese that is eaten all around Latin America. In Chile it’s called quesillo (not the Mexican quesillo!), in Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil they call it Queso Cuajada and in Mexico it’s Queso Panela. It’s the first cheese I made, a very simple way to discover rennet coagulation. It is very fresh, humid, a bit crumbly, with a very mild lactic taste. It is commonly eaten with salad (like a mozzarella, without the threads) or with bread for breakfast. It’s great with a bit of jam on top or with a slice of turkey ham.
History
Looking at this journey through cheese history you will be amazed with how ancient and how important cheese has been since the beginning of western civilisation. We go from the birth of cheese making to the beginning of its industrialisation all with images and stories. Prepare your coffee to join and enjoy!
Pressed cheese
This cheese is one step further in the journey of discovering cheese making. The recipe is a bit more complex and so is the resulting cheese. It is a more dense, less humid cheese which can be aged up to one month. With this cheese, you get a notion of how matured yellow cheeses are made. It has the basic principles of how a Gouda, Emmental or Parmesan would be made. When ageing it you can experiment rubbing it with different oils, beer or spices. You can also play with the times of ageing. If you do not have the patience to wait (I often don’t have it), it is also very good eaten immediately, otherwise you can experiment from days to weeks to a month and explore the types of cheeses you can create.
Chemistry
Before making cheese, I had never had rennet in my kitchen, and I’m guessing that neither do you. That is why with the kit I send you, there is a bottle of Rennet, so you can experiment with this new exciting ingredient. Rennet is an enzyme from the calf’s stomach. It has been used since antiquity to coagulate milk and we will use it in there Masterclass to make both our cheeses.
The videos
About De Kaasserie
About the Masterclass
Preparing to make
curd cheese
Making curd cheese
Cheese history
Preparing to make
pressed cheese
Making pressed cheese
Cheese chemistry
The kit and cards
Not into videos?
Would rather read recipes on cards?
The kit can also be bought with printed cards.
It includes: one woven bamboo basket (or a mould to drain curd cheese) one woven Manchego strip (or a mould for pressing cheese), rennet, calcium, two cheese cloths, a thermometer, a bamboo mat.
Age your cheese
Kit + videos
80€7 online videos, 1 Zoom call, kit included- 1 call for questions on Zoom
- Cheese making kit (sending in NL included)
- 2 introduction videos
- 2 videos to prepare and make curd cheese
- 1 video about cheese history
- 2 videos to prepare and make pressed cheese
- 1 video about cheese chemistry
Videos
40€7 online videos, kit not included- 2 introduction videos
- 2 videos to prepare and make curd cheese
- 1 video about cheese history
- 2 videos to prepare and make pressed cheese
- 1 video about cheese chemistry
“I took Paula's cheese making workshop with my partner and, it was a very special and unique experience”
— Margarita Osipian
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“The workshop is fun, informative, and what I liked the most is that Paula also inspires you to be creative.”
— Nick Tromp
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“I really appreciate the things I learned in your interesting course to make artisan cheeses.”
— Nora Salinas
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“An honor to have done this course with Paula, a very easy and very precise course !!”
— Jackeline Montano
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