Synopsis

Butter, yogurt, ricotta, and other fresh dairy products have been made in home kitchens around the world for centuries. They are not difficult to make, require no complicated aging techniques, and offer the home cook a wonderful range of tart, sweet, nutty, silky, creamy, melty textures and flavors. With the growing availability of local, organic milk and the soaring popularity of raw milk, now is the perfect time to bring fresh dairy products back to the home kitchen.

Author Kathy Farrell-Kingsley begins with simple, step-by-step instructions for making sour cream, buttermilk, créme fraîche, mozzarella, fresh goat cheese, and 10 other fresh milk products. Home cooks will be thrilled with the simple but magical process of turning milk or cream into cultured dairy products and soft, unripened cheeses. There’s nothing quite like watching cream turn into butter or tasting the slightly chewy tang of homemade mozzarella.

Following the dairy instructions are 75 delicious cooking and baking recipes developed to showcase products from The Home Creamery. Cheese Blintzes, Herbed Goat Cheese Bites, Mozzarella Panini, Spinach Ricotta Pie, Coleslaw with Buttermilk Dressing, Chocolate Sour Cream Cake, and Tiramisu are that much sweeter when made with the rich creamy goodness of homemade dairy items.

Judith Sutton – Library Journal

Farrell-Kingsley is a food writer and author of several other cookbooks. Here, she provides easy recipes for making cultured dairy products, such as yogurt, butter, and sour cream, and soft unripened cheeses, such as cream cheese and mozzarella, at home. There are also recipes based on these homemade dairy products, from Buttermilk Pancakes to Italian Ricotta Tart. Sidebars and boxes offer culinary history, nutrition information, and useful tips and hints. Farrell-Kingsley’s thorough but unintimidating recipe instructions will enable any reader to make a variety of dairy products, and many home cooks will be eager to try them. For most collections.

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Biography

Kathy Farrell-Kingsley is the author of many cookbooks, including Chocolate Therapy, The Big Book of Vegetarian, and Chocolate Cakes, selected as one of the best cookbooks of 1993 by Julia Child. Kathy was the food editor of Vegetarian Times for five years, and she has written numerous articles for other publications, such as Cooking Light, Eating Well, and McCall’s. She was the founder of Great Cakes Bakery, which still operates in Westport, Connecticut. Kathy lives in Newtown, Connecticut, with her husband and two daughters.