More fun with goat milk

It’s way too hot to do anything outside so I’ve been making more delicious things with my goat milk.  I finally made chevre, which is French for goat.  It’s one of the most known of all the goat cheeses and can be used for many things: on bagles, in place of cream cheese or ricotta, and you can bake with it.  It’s made with a direct set culture, which you can buy from www.cheesemaking.com.  You warm the milk up to 86 degrees, add the packet, stir and pour into a thermos (I use a yogo-therm) to sit for 12 to 20 hours until firm.   Then you drain it into butter muslin and hang it for 6 to 12 hours.   I added herbs de Provence to my first batch.  Here is a picture of my second batch all wrapped up and labeled. 

By the way, at the farmer’s market today the cheese seller told me he gets $20 a pound for his chevre!   This packet is half a pound. 

We used it with sundried tomatoes and pancetta in pannini sandwiches.  Really, really good. 

I had another plain batch left so I made chevre pound cake from the list of recipes that came with my goat cheesemaking kit from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company.  One of their customers sent it to them years ago. 

I cup soft Chevre at room temp

3 sticks butter at room temp

2 cups sugar

1  1/2 tesp lemon extract or grated lemon zest

2 tsp. vanilla

6 eggs at room temp

3 cups all-purpose flour (I used self-raising because that was all I had.  Alton Brown says to use cake flour for pound cake, which I am going to try next time). 

1 (10″) tube pan or two bread pans (buttered and floured)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325

Cream the chevre and butter in a mixer.  Add the sugar, lemon extract and vanilla.  Beat until the mixture is very light.

Add the eggs, one by one, and beat the mixture until light and fluffy.  Reduce the speed of the mixer to low and add the flour, beating just until the batter is mixed.  Spoon into pan(s).

Bake for 1 1/4 hours or until an inserted skewer or toothpick comes out clean. 

Let stand for five minutes.  Invert onto a rack and cool. 

TaDa!  It was so good.  We spread the slices with cajeta, which made them even better.  The next morning we had slices toasted with Nutella spread on.  I hope the weather cools off.  I need to get on my bike to work off all these goat experiments!

Goat Milk

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