Make your own live-cultured cream cheese

We've posted our workshop series for this season, and have several topics back by popular demand!  One of these is cheese making.  We are excited to be offering this workshop again, where we'll be making mozzerella, cream cheese, talking about other cheeses and also how to make yogurt.  Here at home we make our own mozzarella, cream cheese and yogurt on a regular basis, and I want to start making feta and soft goat cheese as well.  The winter is such a good time for these kinds of kitchen experiments. 

On the weekend we baked our own homemade bagels, made live-cultured cream cheese to go with them, and opened a precious jar of blueberry jam from our pantry!

Live Cultured Cream Cheese

You will need:
2 cups live cultured yogurt
several layers of cheesecloth and one elastic band
wooden stick (e.g. a chopstick)
large pitcher or measuring cup

1) Pour the yogurt through the cheesecloth, into the large pitcher/measuring cup.  Secure the cheesecloth with the elastic band to hold it in place while the whey from the yogurt continues to drip through. 
2) After about 2 hours (or when the yogurt stops dripping), wrap the cheesecloth tightly around the "ball" of yogurt and secure with elastic.  Hang this from the chopstick over top of the pitcher. 
3) After 24 hours you will have nice firm live cultured cream cheese that you can scrape out of the cheesecloth, plus about a cup of whey in your pitcher.  Use the whey in smoothies, baking, etc.