Cabécou

A soft, mild goat cheese

Date started: 12/31/13

Date finished: 1/10/14 (okay to store for a few more weeks)

So, I have this cool new cookbook - what to make first??? What we don't have yet is a cheese press, so I avoid even looking at any of those recipes yet. And I've made very basic cheese before, so I didn't want to start by simply repeating that. I decided to start with this one because:

• I had never made a cheese with goat's milk before
• I had never used molds for shaping cheese before
• I liked the idea of marinating it in the jars of seasoned olive oil - once finished, you add bread for a ready-to-go lunch of bread plus cheese plus herbed dipping oil.

Challenge one - once I've heated the milk and added starter & rennet, how do I keep the mixture at a constant temperature (72F) for 18 hours??? Conveniently, one of my other presents from my brilliant husband is a thermal cooker; I prepared the milk in that pot, set it inside the thermal unit, and it only lost a couple degrees over the 18 hours. Yay!

Challenge two - what do you mean I leave them at room temp for TWO DAYS to drain?!?!? Room temp? Really??? Well, yes, other than my stress level everything worked fine. The cheese settled into the molds just like it was supposed to, drained fine, and appears to be good.

Challenge three - waiting a week. Hey, this part is hard!

We're planning to have one for lunch this weekend; stay tuned for critiques!