4 Recipes For You To Enjoy!
I was searching for organic raw cream cheese and couldn’t find any, so once again I did a bit of research and found that it is super easy to make your own cream cheese.
I am going to give you several different recipes in this post.
- How to make cream cheese if you have raw milk that hasn’t soured yet
- How to make cream cheese if you have soured raw milk.
- How to make cream cheese if you don’t have access to raw milk and want to make it with organic whole milk
- How to make liquid whey.
Don’t let all those different recipes scare you. This whole process will take you less than 5 minutes in prep time but does take some time allowing the milk to sit out.
So let’s get started. First up, this recipe is for fresh raw milk that hasn’t soured yet.
Making Cream Cheese with Non-Soured Raw Milk hasn’t
Here is how to make cream cheese with raw milk that has yet to sour:
1. Place 4 cups of milk in a small saucepan and heat over low heat until 90ºF.
2. Stir in 1/2 tsp of unrefined sea salt and 2 tablespoons of buttermilk (if you don’t have buttermilk, just take 2 tablespoons of raw milk and mix in 1/2 tsp of white vinegar and place in a small bowl. Stir and let stand for 5-10 minutes. You now have buttermilk).
3. Put the milk mixture in a glass half gallon size mason jar and secure the lid tightly. Lay the jar on its side and allow to sit out at room temperature for 8-24 hours or until the milk has clabbered. It is very cold where I am right now, so mine actually took closer to 30 hours.
4. When the milk has clabbered, it will be thick and look like fresh yogurt or gelatin.
5. Once the milk has clabbered, place the milk in a jelly strainer, a thin flour sack or thin tea cloth, or cheesecloth (layered about 4 times). I am using a jelly strainer.
Allow straining at room temperature for several hours or up to 8 hours. The longer you allow it to strain, the thicker your cream cheese will be.
That is it! It is that simple. You will be amazed how wonderful real raw cream cheese really taste!
Try mixing a little raw honey and raw walnuts in the cream cheese and spread it on your favorite sprouted bread. Delicious! This will make about 6-8 ounces of fresh cream cheese.
6. The liquid that comes out when you strain it is the liquid whey. Do not throw out the liquid whey. You can use it in smoothies, or to soak your grains or oats in it. There are many recipes out there using real liquid whey. It will store in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.
If your raw milk goes bad and it is undrinkable because it is sour, don’t throw it out, make some cream cheese with it.
Cream Cheese If You Have Soured Raw Milk
- Simply put the 4 cups of milk into a 1/2 gallon glass mason jar, secure lid and leave out at room temperature until milk has clabbered.
- Place milk in a strainer, tea cloth/flour sack, cheesecloth and allow the whey to drip out for 2-8 hours, depending on the desired consistency.
- Do not throw out the liquid whey. You can use it in smoothies, or to soak your grains or oats. There are many recipes out there using real liquid whey. It will store in the refrigerator for up to 6 months.
If you do not have access to raw milk, then you can use organic whole milk.
Cream Cheese Without Raw Milk
How to make cream cheese if you don’t have access to raw milk and want to make it with organic whole milk.
- Place 4 cups of organic whole milk in a small sauce pan and heat over low heat until 90ºF.
- Stir in 1/2 tsp of unrefined sea salt and 2 tablespoons of buttermilk (if you don’t have buttermilk, just take 2 tablespoons of organic whole milk and mix in 1/2 tsp of white vinegar. Stir and let stand for 5-10 minutes. You now have buttermilk).
- Put the milk mixture in a glass half gallon size mason jar and secure the lid tightly. Lay the jar on its side and allow to sit out at room temperature for several hours or overnight until the milk has clabbered. It will be thick and look like fresh yogurt or gelatin.
- Once the milk has clabbered, slowly stir and heat the mixture over low heat to 120ºF, it should start to curdle. Turn off heat and let sit covered for 10 minutes.
- Now place the milk in a cheesecloth (layered about 4 times), a flour sack or tea cloth, or a jelly strainer. Rinse all of these options with cool water before adding the milk to them. I am using a jelly strainer. Allow straining for several hours. The longer you let it strain, the thicker the cream cheese will be.
- Do not throw out the liquid whey. You can use it in smoothies, or to soak your grains or oats. There are many recipes out there using real liquid whey. It will store in the refrigerator for up to 6 months. That is it, that simple!
Image Credit: On Just A Couple Acres; image credit: Cheesemaking.com
Recipe adapted for pasteurized cream cheese recipe courtesy of Ehow.com
Can you eliminate the salt altogether? or is there a variation? We don not use salt or eat foods that have it added to them.
Thanks so much
My milk never clabbered. Is it because I used a gallon jar instead? I did not have a have gallon size. I used 4 cups raw milk that was just a couple days old and added the salt and buttermilk after it was heated to 90 degrees. Any advice would be great.
I have the same problem, my raw milk turns bitter when it goes “sour,” it seems. I have tried to find info online and it seems like the only information that I can find tells me that the problem is with the source of the milk. It seems that milk turns bitter when it gets invaded with bacteria from dirty equipment or certain grasses that the cows eat. Does anyone else have suggestions? could it be something that I am doing? The bitterness seems to be consistent. All of my raw milk becomes bitter.
Irina, thank you for the post.
I came here trying to figure out why my cream cheese tasted a bit funny – I think it is a bitter flavor maybe from the raw milk. But I will keep experimenting because my cream cheese was not tangy ( I used rennet) so I mean to try the buttermilk method next time.
When using raw milk, should it be while fat or have the cream taken off the top first? We usually just leave the fat in the milk and shake it up for drinking, but we can’t always use it up in time so I’d love to make cream cheese with it!
Products made from “older” raw milk will be bitter. Best to use fresh. We have a small raw milk dairy. Hoffmanslittleacres.com
Even though raw milk is still perfectly good to drink for 2+ wks. Cold storage will allow other bacteria in the raw milk and just make your final product taste “off”.
Not the cows’ diet.
Cleanliness will effect the milk differently & won’t be good to drink for very long. Our milk must be “too clean”, it takes days to clabber at room temp.
I am so disappointed, in the last week, I’ve tried both your cream cheese and ricotta cheese recipes and both have failed. What a waste of milk and time. What can I do with 8 cups of soured milk that didn’t clabber after 34 hrs? It stinks! I was trying to make your cheesecake from scratch because it was such an awesome recipe. Help
Dawn were you using raw milk?
Yes raw. It clabbered 5 hrs later for a 48 hr total. But 2 fails on ricotta. What’s exact type of vinegar. Tks
Can i use raw apple cider vinegar instead of the white? for the buttermilk?
I don’t see why not.
great information, we do have a source for raw milk and it works great!
I have tried to make cream cheese from raw milk 3 times now. Each time I get closer but the cream cheese is too loose. I clabber the milk into a thick gelatin consistency, then I strain it in a jelly bag for up to 8 hours but it never gets thick. Suggestions?
Disappointed that I wasted a perfectly good 1/2 gal of raw milk only successfully turning it from fresh to sour-should have read the other disappointed posts & looked into a more reliable source. I used real buttermilk not sure if this should have been “cultured” since directions didn’t specify.
Something to try for those having bad results with the clabbering (not promising results just sharing something I have done): Instead of leaving the milk on the counter to clabber, you can put it in a cooler with two bottles of hot water from the tap next to it. Throw a hand towel over it and close the lid on the cooler. I have good luck with it clabbering nicely using that method. Mine has clabbered overnight using this method.
I just (unintentionally-before reading this) followed the ‘cream cheese from sour raw milk’ method. I purchased raw milk from a farmer on Tuesday. His information indicated it could be up to 4 days post-cow at the time of purchase, and should stay fresh about 1 week in the fridge. By Saturday I was suspecting it was going sour, and I drank the sour milk on Sunday (no ill effects and the milk had no bad smell). By Monday the raw milk was starting to separate and by Tuesday the separating/clabbering process (still refrigerated) was very evident. I left it unrefrigerated/on the counter for 6-7 hours Tuesday evening to accelerate the process, which was successful. Back into the fridge and the whey continued to separate from the curd. Wednesday evening I strained off the whey and let the remaining cheese (which has a jello-like or sour cream-type consistency) strain though a dish towel overnight. I tried a small amount and it did taste bitter and also has a slightly strange smell. It’s the smell I’m worried about… Everything I’ve read on-line indicates this ‘cheese’ should be perfectly fine for eating, but the strange smell has me wondering… Also, it has a cream color, not white like in the photos. Any feedback would be appreciated! Thank you.
Hello, my raw milk clabbered well but after straining for several hours the resulting cheese was grainy-not smooth like cream cheese. More like ricotta. What did I do wrong ?