Little Miss Muffet

Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey.

Along came a spider
And sat down beside her,
And frightened Miss Muffet away!

I experienced and ignominious failure on Monday. I had 4 lovely gallons of fresh raw goat milk that I was going to make into a 4 pound wheel of Farmhouse Cheddar cheese. There comes, in the procedure, a time when I heat the curds and whey up to 100 degrees F. and then set it in a sink full of 100 degree water for 30 minutes. I was busy and forgot to do that step! I just poured it all into the lined colander. And then I realized what I had done! For the first time in a long time, I was really quite mad at myself.

So, now I'm stuck with a whole bunch of softish curd. I salted it and am storing it in the refrigerator in a bowl, covered, awaiting inspiration as to what I can do with all of that. It is still a raw milk product. Sigh....

Here is my first effort:



Curd Bread

2.5 cups very warm water
1 Tablespoon instant yeast
2 cups of the curds - not packed down
2 teaspoons salt
2 Tablespoons goat butter
2 Tablespoons raw honey
1 1/2 cups sprouted wheat flour (because that's all I had.)
Unbleached flour (sufficient to make a nice kneadable dough.)

Put the yeast in your bread bowl. Add the water, then add everything else and stir well. Knead on floured surface for 10 minutes. Place in buttered bowl and allow to raise until double in bulk. Punch down, form into two loaves. Place loaves in sprayed bread pans. Allow to rise in warm place until nice and springy. Bake in pre-heated 350 degree F. oven for 55 minutes. Cool loaves on wire rack.

As I've said before, I cook mainly by "method" and not exact recipes. So, if you would like to re-create this bread, don't be put off by the esoteric ingredient list. See ~

"Raw honey" - think, what sweetener do I have on hand? Use it!
"Goat butter" - good grief. Just use some regular butter.
"sprouted wheat flour" - of course this does make a difference, but you could substitute some whole wheat flour and still have some nice bread.
"Curds" - substitute drained cottage cheese.

This bread is really delicious, and I used some of it this morning to make French toast. Very nice!