Oat encrusted cream cheese - stage two, finished

Here's how I finished off making the cream cheese

Oat rolled cream cheese

After two days in the fridge dripping the liquid out I unwrapped the cheese I had started earlier here.  It was creamy and authentic looking.  I tasted it, it was certainly cheesy and had the sharpness from the yogurt cutting through it.  It was, in my opinion, missing something in the flavour department and so I added half a teaspoon of salt and mixed it through.  The video gives you a good visual of the consistency of the cheese at this stage as I'm adding the salt to it.

Having done that I pondered whether to put it into use or press it.  The rolled in oats idea crossed my mind again and so I considered pressing in oats.  As an experiment I lined a ramekin with a clean, scalded muslin (voile curtain) and lined the base of it with a good sprinkling of oats.

Then I carefully put the salted cheese on top and levelled it off.  On top of that went another layer of oats and then a disc of polythene to stop it sticking under weight.  I cut up a used freezer bag that I'd washed.  Then I put the ramekin's lid on upside down to use as a base for the weight.

The weight came in the shape of my pestle, or is it the mortar? Anyway, it's a solid marble weight of just the right size.  Then back in the fridge with it for another day.

 

I owe somebody a credit here as I saw or read about using a pestle (or mortar) to weigh the cheese and press it.  I also think they made a pure yogurt cheese.  If anybody knows who it is I will gladly credit them, sadly, I can't remember who or where I saw it and a search on Google turned nothing up.

After 24 hours being pressed I decided that today was the day.  I gingerly unwrapped my cheese, fingers and toes crossed that it had worked.

Now for the taste test, I cut a piece of Himself's wholemeal loaf and spread it on, it was perfectly spreadable and looked just as it should do.  The oats mixed in when spread.  It tasted wonderful!  There was cheesy creaminess with a subtle sharp hit from the yogurt.  The oats lend an interesting savoury taste and texture.  I'm calling this a success.  I tried to capture the moment on video to demonstrate how it looked being spread, it's a bit shaky as filming with an iPhone and spreading cheese isn't exactly easy.