Four Cheeses in One Day

Yesterday was a mammoth cheesemaking day - 4 different types in one day. I decided I might have just enough time to mature a camembert in time for Christmas- well I have no idea really but I will give it a go. I thought I needed an ingredient which I didn't have, namely the white mould culture however a friend who has recently done a camembert workshop informed me otherwise. According to her teacher, you can just scrape a very thin sliver of the white mould off the outside of a bought camembert and it does the same job. Well, the proof will be in the pudding. The recipe was relatively straight forward other than my timer kept going off and reminding me to do the next step. It has been so humid here for the past couple of days though that the cheese is still quite wet so it hasn't made it to the cheese "cave" yet. Speaking of which, the two parmesan  are getting be quite smelly now and every time my son sits at the computer next to the cheeses, he thinks his feet are really smelly and then realises it is the cheeses!
In between doing the steps of the camembert recipe, I made a batch of halloumi as well. A slightly different method this time which didn't involve pressing but one that I think is more authentic Cypriot and which I adapted from the way I saw it made on Will Studd's "Cheese Slices" program earlier this year.

I also made some Anari from the left over whey, also Cypriot style, right down to the panty hose used to drain it! It seems to be almost identical to ricotta really- of which I made a batch using the whey from the camembert.

And if that wasn't enough to do for the day, I also decided to make some Panettone (yeast version this time) and biscotti and sourdough bread and yoghurt as well. No wonder I was feeling a little weary by the end of the day...and had no desire to spend the day in the kitchen today!