Home Made Gut Friendly Goat’s Cheese

Inspired By Sarah Wilson, I decided to make my own gut friendly cream cheese. Since both kid 1 and I are sensitive to dairy, I decided to make it with goat’s cheese. The usual cream cheeses you buy in the supermarket are full of additives and really I suspect not that much goodness. Since we have been on a mission to replace friendly bacteria in our guts ( since tests some time ago revealed that candida had almost completely wiped out all our gut friendly bugs) live cream cheese seemed like a tasty way to do it. So in addition to taking copious cocktails of gut friendly probiotics, this cream cheese is far more pleasurable!

I bought two tubs of organic Goat’s Yoghurt that contained pro-biotics and nothing more. Make sure you buy good quality yoghurt that contains pro-biotics. It should not contain any added ingredients, otherwise what would be the point of making it yourself?  The thicker the yoghurt the less whey you will have. The thicker the better, but the cheese above was made from a fairly runny yoghurt. So it really doesn’t matter that much. To make the cheese you will need:

Natural Goat (or Cow) yoghurt.

A sieve

A bowl and/or deep jug

A large square of clean cheese cloth

A wooden spoon to tie the cloth onto

An elastic band to attach the yoghurt containing cloth to the spoon

Step 1: Place your sieve over a bowl. Line the sieve with the cheese cloth. I find that it is better to have two layers of cheese cloth. So double up the cloth by folding it if it is large or use two together to make a double layer. Pour the yoghurt into the cheesecloth.

Step 2: Bring up the four corners of the cheesecloth so you are making a bag that contains the yoghurt. All the liquid dripping out is the whey. You need to hang the cloth and yogurt high enough so that the bottom does not touch the liquid/whey. My bowl was to shallow so I hung it into a jug. This worked well. Tie the cloth onto a wooden spoon by turning it around the handle of the spoon and secure it with elastic bands. There are some wonderful healthful things you can do with the whey. Since we have the milk sensitivity I was not sure that would be a good thing, so down the drain it went!  I poured off the whey that collected at the bottom so that it would not touch the cheese. This remained at room temperature for two days. Whilst it is hanging there, the friendly bugs are multiplying happily, making digestion easier for us humans. This hanging also appears to soften the flavour of the Goat’s Cheese. The result is delicate and creamy. Not at all sour and sharp like the yoghurt.

Step 3: After two days, remove the bag and place it into a bowl. Using a knife, scrape the resulting cheese into a bowl.

Step 4: There it is, beautiful creamy goat’s cheese. It is really lovely and not at all strong or overpowering. I suspect you could add delicate herbs such as thyme, which would make it more interesting. We simply enjoyed it on gluten-free rice cakes with a splash of olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt and a grinding of black pepper.  There you have it. Home made, gut friendly, cream cheese. Go ahead and give it a try. You won’t be disappointed!