I’m so excited that I now have a cheese making kit. How cool is that?! The Italian kit comes with everything you need to make three different cheeses; mozzarella, ricotta and mascarpone. We decided we would make mozzarella first and Mr Ecochick and I had a wonderful time together in the kitchen making yummy fresh mozzarella. The recipe was super easy to follow and there is also a great step by step you tube video that you can watch if you want some extra information. We had a great time cooking and stretching the cheese and even more fun eating it! 
After making mozzarella there is heaps of whey left and I felt this was a waste to just throw away so I decided to make some ricotta. There is a Mad Millie recipe that tells you how to make ricotta from milk and you will get a descent amount if you follow this recipe but I didn’t want to waste the whey (which is what ricotta is traditionally made from). I can see why Mad Millie recommends using milk to make ricotta as I only got about 100gms but it was free and would only have been tipped down the sink so worth doing really. Just a note though if you are going to make ricotta from the whey best to leave it overnight as nothing happens for many hours. So far we’ve made mozzarella and ricotta and on the weekend we’re going to make some mascarpone so we can make Tiramisu. Yummy!
I’m definitely keen to make the mozzarella again and will make the ricotta properly to make some yummy lasagna but what I would really like to make is feta and halloumi. I’m going to pop into my local Mad Millie store tomorrow and see what extra bits I need to buy to make these cheeses. So if I was buying a kit I personally think I would buy the Beginners Italian Kit and also buy the Italian cheese manual so you can also make these other cheeses as well. All in all we’ve had a great time and I can’t wait to make more cheese.
If you want a step by step guide check out Frugal Kiwi.
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Fun! We are planning on making cheese this winter. Never made it, but I can’t wait
Gee now that sounds like fun….might have to investigate further on this
That sounds like great fun – I’m sure my daughter would love it. i know what to ask my mother-in-law for as a Xmas pressie 🙂
Yum Mads! That looks so freaking delicious! I made paneer once using milk and lemon juice to separate the solids. Then without thinking I tipped all the whey down the sink! What a waste! I did a google search on what you can use whey for and all sorts of things came up – for example you can use it in baking and also as a fertiliser!
alix xx
I was also going to comment on the whey, I use it in baking, but if I have too much I feed it to the chickens and if I really have too much, I put it in the compost. There’s not much that goes down our drain or in the bin, with hungry chickens, dogs and garden, there’s always somewhere better to put it. Your cheese looks great, I haven’t tried making mozzarella yet, and with the house cow nearly out of milk I don’t have the excess that got us into cheese-making when she first calved. It will have to wait until next year now.
Thanks for the link Madeleine, cheese making is fun!
HI,
We are going to try making mozzarella these school hols. You said making ricotta from the whey, use all of that instead of milk? can you please tell us what you did measurements if you can , I know my sons would really appreciate it.
Thanks so much