Little Miss Muffet

Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey…

When I was young and recited this nursery rhyme, I thought that curds and whey sounded pretty disgusting. It always made me think of curdled milk. As I got older, I realized that curds and whey was probably something like cottage cheese.

Earlier this week I received my cheese making supplies, and I have been waiting for an opportunity for days to experience homemade cheese bliss.

After reading and re-reading my cheese recipe all week, I finally decided that I had sufficient time to do my cheese experiment today.

I planned to make mozzarella cheese. The process I found here
seemed pretty easy. I also initially decided on mozzarella cheese because 1. I love mozzarella cheese and 2. From everything I read, it is one of the most basic cheeses with the least amount of fancy equipment required.

Turning milk into a new product is always a little scary. I was pretty excited when my milk started looking like this:

What you are looking at is a vat of curds and whey! Yum-o! Whether Little Miss Muffet ate that or cottage cheese, I’m not really sure, but I will find a solid answer at some point along my journey.

After successfully separating my curds from the whey, the experience went downhill from there. The instruction refer to draining the curds, but puts emphasis on not draining them too much. I think I erred on the other end, as my product at each step did not resemble the hypothetical product in the instructions. Nevertheless, I pressed on with my cheese-making, assuming that I would have some edible product at the end.

I formed very gooey and grainy mozzarella balls, which I don’t think resemble what I know to be mozzarella. I haven’t sampled them yet either but plan to this evening after they chill. Hopefully they turn out edible at least in a quesadilla. I feel, however, that all I ended up making were salted curds. Verdict to come soon.