Some friends and I were enjoying fresh made soft cheese and I wondered out loud what chocolate soft cheese would be like...a chorus of "yummmm" quickly followed and I decided I had to try it. I had in mind to make it with pre-made chocolate milk and hunted around for advice on the Internet. I couldn't find much information and decided to experiment on my own. Knowing that minimally processed milk makes the best cheese, I bought a 1/2 gallon of Borges Family Creamery Whole Organic Chocolate Milk from our local Northcoast Co-op. Ingredients on the carton listed a couple thickeners, some sugar, cocoa and milk. Because I didn't want to waste chocolate milk if the experiment bombed, I decided to scale down my standard recipe. It usually calls for 1 gallon of milk, I used 1 quart and reduce the other ingredients by 1/4 as well. I also skipped the salting step at the end.
Basically I followed the same recipe and technique for soft cultured cheese with one minor adjustment. I had to let the milk ripen a couple hours longer because the curd hadn't formed, and the curd that did finally form was rather soft.
The chocolate flavor was concentrated with a little dark chocolate bitterness. It was also tangy and barely sweet (the whey that drained off was quite sweet). It had a nice smooth mouth feel just like the soft cultured cheese does. Don't expect it to taste like chocolate cream cheese frosting or chocolate cheesecake filling - it is not that sweet and fatty. It is more like soft cultured cheese with cocoa & a tiny bit of sugar. It tasted great on toasted homemade bread and rosemary corn cakes from the Northcoast Bakery. I bet it would be good on plain bagels, scones, muffins and pancakes too.
What an interesting experiment! I have tried unsuccessfully to pair cheese and chocolate, but never thought about chocolate cheese. The ensemble in the photo is quite tempting.
Posted by: Simona | 05/26/2011 at 09:09 PM
That looks amazing Rhonda!!! I can hardly wait for your exotic flavored soft cheese class.
Posted by: Lauren Fawcett | 05/26/2011 at 10:48 PM