Sheep Milk Quark – Better Than Store Bought Cream Cheese?
This recipe for sheep milk quark is so simple, you’ll be wondering why you waited so long to make it. What is quark you might be asking? Quark is very similar to cream cheese, except slightly thinner and made with whole milk, instead of just cream. Ditch the stuff in the box and make your own utilizing milk from your own ewes!
My daughter loves to bake. One of our favorite things she makes are these Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars. This quark recipe works perfectly in them!
Homemade Sheep Milk Quark
I’ve tried several different cream cheese / quark recipes over the years. Some have a lot of hands on time, others just didn’t turn out, and some used all of my precious cream! When it comes to sheep milk, if you don’t have a separator it can be tough to skim enough cream off to make those recipes that call for all cream. That’s one of the main things I love about this recipe, it uses whole milk.
The other great thing about this recipe is that if you are using milk fresh from the udder, you don’t even have to heat it, you can just add your culture and your rennet, then let it sit overnight to clabber.
The next morning you simply spoon the curd into a cheesecloth or flour sack towel and let it drain until it reaches your desired consistency.
Add salt to taste (please add some – it adds flavor and helps preserve it), pop in the fridge and you are done! Easy peasy.
Ingredients in Sheep Milk Quark
Sheep Milk: freshest is best, if you can use it straight after filtering from milking, that’s great! If you have to use refrigerated milk, just use the freshest you have and heat it back to about 90 degrees F.
Culture: You can use whatever mesophilic culture you have on hand – I like to use clabber, you can also use cultured buttermilk or a freeze dried mesophilic culture.
Rennet: You don’t need much! But adding it makes a big difference, I promise! I have tried recipes that did not use rennet and just basically strained off a clabber curd. While this works, it did not drain as well for me as when I add a couple drops of rennet.
Salt: use whatever you have on hand
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