- 120 mins
Ingredients
- 8 cups (half gallon) pasteurized whole milk
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
Preparation
Step 1
1. Combine the milk, which you have to make sure it is just pasteurized milk and not ultra pasteurized. Ultra pasteurized is an extra heating process and breaks down the fat part the milk and will not make the ricotta correctly. Anyway, combine the milk and cream together on a large non reactive pot. Heat the milk on medium heat until it reaches about 175 degrees F. This takes about 5 minutes or so for the milk and cream to get to that temperature.
2. While the milk and cream are heating up, line a colander with cheese cloth. Then place that colander over a large bowl or another large pot. I will give you a hint on this, I found cheese cloth at the dollar store, so look there, you will find it cheaper there.
3. After the milk and cream have reach 175F turn the heat off. Slowly drizzle the vinegar into the milk, stirring as you do so. I admit I used the same measuring cup for the cream and vinegar and that is fine, it one less dish you have to clean. It will not affect the ricotta. You do have options with the vinegar, you can use white if you like. Also lemon juice is fine as well. Apple cider vinegar will give a sweeter taste to the ricotta then white vinegar. Lemon gives a touch of the citrus. So really up to you what you like to use.
4.After you added the last the vinegar, stop stirring and let the mixture now rest for 20 minutes. You will see that it curdling and getting thick. This our ricotta forming! After 20 minutes have passed. Ladle out the ricotta into the cheesecloth lined bowl system we set up earlier. You notice as you are ladling it out, the clearish liquid that left in the pot. This is the "whey" You remember nursery rhyme: "Little Ms Tuffet eating her curds and whey? That essentially what we just done, we made curds, which is our ricotta and now we have whey left over. If you put that in a separate jar, you can use it in baked goods that call for dairy. It will make them taste very good in fact. A week in the fridge is all the whey can be used for, after that if you don't use it through it away.
5. After you ladled the ricotta into the cheese cloth. let it sit there for about an hour. This is drying it, to get more the whey out of it, so more ricotta like.
6.After an hour, give the cheese cloth one good squeeze, take the ricotta out of it, put into a jar. It like the whey it keep for a week in the fridge. Make Stuffed shells, cheese cake, basically anything you use ricotta for, ENJOY!