Around Christmas, our local semi-gourmet grocery got a selection of flavored baked ricotta cheeses. My son and wife both loved the chocolate ricotta. Alas, it was a seasonal thing, and by the end of January, it was all gone.

As my four-year-old son is a bit of a cheese fanatic anyway and I want to get him excited about cooking, I decided that we'd try to make cheese today. I'd read that it was really easy to make ricotta at home, and my research bore that out. The recipe is basically...

8:1 ratio of whole milk to heavy cream, a pinch of salt, and around 2 tablespoons of lemon juice per quart of milk. You can also use vinegar instead of lemon juice. Bring the milk, cream, and salt to a near boil in a non-reactive pot over low heat. Toss in the lemon juice, stir, and remove from the heat, letting the curds (cheese) and the whey (watery non-cheese) separate. After a few minutes, pour into a collander lined with a cheesecloth and let it drain for a couple of hours to ensure the water drains out.

I brought 2 quarts of milk and a cup of cream to the near boil and let my son pour in the lemon juice and watch as the curds formed. Then I drained it and showed him the nascent cheese. Since we were going to visit some friends and I wanted a firmer cheese (more like "ricotta salata" than like the creamy, pudding-like stuff you buy in tubs), I propped the collander on a bowl with room to drain, folded the cheesecloth over the top, then put a bowl of water on top of the cheese to help press it, then put it all in the refrigerator to drain and firm up.

After the long visit with friends, we were a bit pooped and just got fast food for dinner because we still had to feed, bathe, and put to bed a baby and a four-year old. But after the boys were put to bed, my wife asked if I was going to make the chocolate cheese, because she was jonesing for a little chocolate.

Because the cheese was so firm, I had no idea how I was going to incorporate the chocolate. I put about half of it in a bowl, took a regular teaspoon from the silverware drawer, and measured out maybe 1.5 or so spoonfuls of Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder, then 3 spoonfuls of organic sugar. I started trying to mash it in with a fork, but it was slow going. I don't remember why, but the thought occurred to me to try to knead it. That worked beautifully. Once some finger pressure was applied, the cheese took on a consistency almost like Play-doh. It wasn't too wet, wasn't too dry; I could squeeze it, fold it, mold it, and really get the cocoa and sugar well-incorporated without leaving a sticky mess all over my hands.

I had no idea if the chocolate and sugar balance was right, so we tasted it. It was amazingly good for just eyeballing it, especially when I'd never done this before. Everything balanced, so we tasted the chocolate, the sugar, and the fresh mild cheese without any of them bashing you over the head. The only problem was that the organic granulated table sugar I used gave it a bit of a gritty texture.

I knew that the grittiness would disappear after I baked it, but my wife couldn't wait. I divided the cheese ball approximately in half. One half filled most of a 5-ounce ramekin which was put into a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes (YMMV -- I put it in while pre-heating, so it spent 10 minutes in the oven while coming up to 350 and 10 minutes at 350). The other half stayed in a bowl and went to the couch so my wife could nibble something during the baking and cooling periods. When the baked cheese came out of the oven the chocolate smell was to die for. It was like the smell of fresh-baked chocolate brownies, right out of the oven. I let it cool for 20 minutes, then slid a knife around the edge of the ramekin and tapped it out onto a cutting board.

I forgot to grease the ramekin before putting the cheese in, so a smidge stayed in, but most came out. I made little amuse bouche portions for us with spoons, cutting through the mass from top to bottom, getting a little of the softer innards and a little of the slightly crisped top on each spoon. It was as good as, if not better than, the small loaves I'd picked up at the supermarket (at a cost of $7 for a 5-ounce portion). The flavors were more complex, and of-course, it was all freshly made. 12 hours earlier, that cheese had been milk and cream.

We saved the lion's share of it for my son (since my wife had eaten a whole ball of approximately similar weight), but those spoonfuls were awesome.

Besides the lesson learned about kneading the cocoa into the cheese, I realized that if I used a powdered or confectioner's sugar, or a more finely granulated sugar substitute, that would remove the gritty texture of the unbaked product, so baking would be optional. But I also learned that the baking added a new depth and complexity, sort of the difference between eating cookie dough and eating a fresh-baked cookie. Each one is very nice, but each one has its place.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 1:17 am and is filed under Cooking & Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.