Homemade Velveeta

[mrskk]

This recipe was posted by Farmwoman on the Christian Homesteader forum (http://farmwoman.proboards106.com/index.cgi). When I made the Velveeta from my 5 gallon batch as described in the thread on multiple cheeses from one batch, I just used the drained curds from the point of "Strain and squeeze curd until fairly dry."

Homemade Velveeta

This is one you can make without a cheese press.I let my milk really clabber well. I used live-culture plain yogurt to culture my fresh warm milk.

1 1/2 gallons clabbered milk
4 TBSP. butter
3/4 teasp. baking soda
2/3 cup soured cream
1 1/2 teasp. salt
1/2 teasp. cheese coloring (if desired)
Heat clabbered milk for 30 minutes at a temperature of 110 - 115 degrees farenheit. Strain and squeeze curd until fairly dry. Place curd in mixing bowl and stir in soft butter and soda until well mixed. Let stand covered for 2 1/2 hours. Put on stove in double boiler, adding soured cream, salt and cheese coloring. Cook until it looks like melted cheese. It will take a little while for the curds to melt into the cream. Stir constantly during this process. Turn into a buttered mold. I use a rectangle plastic container. Chill until set and slice to serve.
Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do.

The live culture yogurt clabbers the milk. I strain my fresh milk and stir in the yogurt. My oven has a bread proofing setting that I use in cold weather to keep the milk at the right temp. In warm weather just cover the container and let set until the milk clabbers. It usually takes about 12 hours. This is a good Velveeta substitute. I use it to make maccaroni and cheese, with salsa to make a hot dip, and we love it on crackers.

[maggiesherd]

Karen, that looks great! I'm going to do it. I cringed the other day when my husband said he'd pick up the stuff for a snacky dinner for the kids and came home with Velveeta!!!! Of, course, the kids loved it. I could've done it all healthy with homemade chips and your recipe. I'm excited.

As far as clabbering; I left a gallon of milk out on the counter for a couple of days and it "clabbered" I think. Would this work?

Carol

[mrskk]

I haven't had much success in using "counter clabbered" milk for this recipe. Farmwoman always uses yogurt to thicken/clabber her milk and she says she gets great results.

[maggiesherd]

Can you give me details on how to do this? Is it 1 cup yogurt to a gallon milk or something similar?
Thanks Karen.
Carol

[mrskk]

Farmwoman says that she uses 1 cup of yogurt for the 1 1/2 gallons of milk in this recipe. Good luck and let me know how it goes for you. I didn't have much success, but was very busy (really bad weather, so quick trip to town and preparations for the storm) so it wasn't "managed" very well, either.

The velveeta I made from clabber turned kind of grainy after it formed up.

[mama4life]

I made this recipe and it turned out great. I didn't follow the recipe exactly, but it worked well anyway. My milk clabbered without any help from yogurt. I didn't use a double boiler in the end-too many extra pans to mess with. I didn't let it sit for the 2 1/2 hours. I put the hot cheese mixture in my blender and blended until smooth. Then I poured it into a glass container.

It seems that with this recipe you don't really have to be precise. It is very forgiving. I love this recipe!

Anne

[Joelle]

I've been making it too, and it's the best! Great flavor, I love it on veggies. I can't seem to get the texture to not be a little grainy, but that doesn't bother me any.

Also, I found if you just follow the recipe as far as heating the curds, draining them, and adding the baking soda you have PERFECT cottage cheese. Just FYI.

[mama4life]

Thanks for the tip about the cottage cheese. I'll have to try it.

I put mine in the blender while it's hot and puree it. It comes out nice and smooth.

Anne

[Joelle]

Oooo, I like the blender idea. Thanks, Anne!

[CampE]

I tried this recipe once last year without much success.
I'm inspired (Thanks mama4life and Joelle) to give it another try. And...........I can use the new blender we got.

[ange]

Hi, I'm anxious to try this. I'm not sure I can with our staph cow, though, due to clabbering. Would it work to heat my milk to 165, then to introduce a culture, like yogurt or even buttermilk? Would it clabber properly?

And for the soured cream, should I just use storebought? Not really wanting to grow staph in my velveeta!

[dextermooz]

Just bumping this post up to the top to hopefully find out if "soured cream" is the same thing as store bought sour cream or something entirely different?

Also, I've never herd of velveeta cheese - different posts mentions mac n cheese and pouring it into jars like it is runny or spreadable and the original recipe mentions it sliced...what sort of cheese is velveeta?

[suzorse]

it is a soft cheese,I make it all the time also, I put cream on the counter to sour, I have also
put it in my yogert maker over night,and have cultered it with yogert, your soured cream needs to be runnier than store bought, I stir in the double boiler till it is like taffy, then put in a buttered bread pan then refridgerate, sometimes it is velvetta like and sometimes it is like philly cheese speadable flavor is awsome
Suzanne

[dextermooz]

so its just...clabbered cream instead of milk? I've got a simple Easy-Yo yogurt maker so I guess that would work as well. Looks like this recipe is on my to-do list:)

[Rhoda]

I have played around with this recipe and combined it with another one I have in a book. I followed Lannie's instructions on making the clabber, then I use one gallon of clabber, Make sure the curds are squeezed dry. I only put 1/2 tsp soda. Instead of sour cream I use whole milk and put it all in the double boiler at the same time. It takes some time to get it all melted together, but it is so yummy. I just finished another batch and put some extra milk in it, hoping it will be loose enough to use as a spread. This is one of my favorite recipes.

I use fresh whole unpasteurized milk.

[Rhoda]

Just an update. The new experiment of spreadable cheese worked. My husband loves Cheeze Whiz and I hate buying it because it is so full of garbage. This stuff is better than Cheeze Whiz. Yay, don't have to buy that stuff anymore.

[Vanessa]

I found this recipe: cheesemakinghelp.blogspot.ca/2010/10/homemade-velveeta.html and, being as I already had some lactic cheese made up, rushed to try it!! It turned out really super-like making magic in the kitchen, with real milk! LOL!!
The texture and colour were perfect-my kids were like "THAT looks JUST like the cheese you only buy in the summer to put on hot dogs!!"
The only thing was-I'm thinking about cutting the baking soda back, quite a bit next time. I'm not sure if it was b/c I had swiped about half a cup of the lactic cheese to make a spread, and forgot to adjust the recipe, or what, but although the cheese tasted super, it had that soapy aftertaste that I still (regrettably) remember from when I made a quadruple batch of banana chip muffins and accidentially put baking soda in place of the baking powder. 12 tsp of baking soda...
It also foamed and fizzed when I added salsa to it, and kinda neutralized the taste of both.
Any thoughts on how much to cut back? It looks like with this recipe people are using a LOT less.... I wonder if that would change texture/flavour?

[Rhoda]

Vanessa, I am going to try this tonight. Going to cut the soda back to one teaspoon. Will let you know how it works.

[Vanessa]

Oh, thank you!!

[Vanessa]

ok-I got impatient and tried it today, with 1.5 tsp baking soda, and some lactic cheese that had hung 24 hours (whoops!). I ended up beating it twice too-b/c I realized after letting it sit half an hour with the baking soda, that I hadn't added the salt. So I beat that in, then heated it.
I didn't get Velveeta-but I did get the VERY bestest tasting string cheese ever!! My kids are thrilled!! I don't know that I can replicate it though....
As soon as I heated it in the butter, it went to that stringy mozz, and so I just went with it, and pulled it like mozz, and then plopped it in a rectangular container, and have been cutting sticks from it.
Can't wait to hear how yours went, Rhoda!!