German Quark Cheese is a simple soft cheese that is easily made at home. It is a versatile and delicious German kitchen staple! In Germany it is used like cream cheese here in America but also like cottage cheese and sour cream and buttermilk and .... In other words, it's in a lot of recipes!
A 6-8 quart stock pot - It must be non-reactive material such as stainless steel or enamel.
A skimmer with holes - if you don't have one, you can stir with a slotted turner or even a spoon, but a utensil with holes will mix things better.
A cheesecloth - Do not use the kind from the grocery aisle. It won't work. Use a flour sack towel, tea towel, piece of butter muslin, cheesemaker's cheese cloth, or a new cloth diaper,
A second pot or large bowl - for transferring your curds later.
Storage container, non-reactive - I recommend glass, or stainless steel. Plastic can leach flavors and chemicals and the acidity of the cheese can leach particles from metal such as aluminum.
Ingredients
1 galMilk- See notes!
1/4cupStarter culture- Whey, kefir, clabber, active buttermilk. If using freeze dried culture, follow package directions for dosage. If using raw milk, cut dosage in half. See notes!
Rennet- Optional. See notes!
Calcium Chloride- Only needed for pasteurized milk. See notes!
2tspSalt per pound of quark- If you plan to store the quark for long-term
Instructions
Warm The Milk
Slowly warm your milk while stirring occasionally. Heat it to 80 degrees if it's goat's milk. Heat it to 86 degrees if it's cow's milk. If you're taking milk straight from the dairy animal, there is no need to heat it first, just pour it into your cheesemaking pot and proceed.
Add The Starter Culture
Take the pot off the heat and add the starter culture. If you want use calcium chloride, add it now as well. If you're using a freeze dried culture, sprinkle the correct amount over the top of the milk and let it hydrate for two minutes. Then stir it in.Stir well with an up and down motion, and try to stay below the milk surface.
Add The Rennet
Prepare your rennet by diluting it in 1/4 cup of water.If you use rennet, add one tablespoon of the the diluted rennet now and stir well with up and down motions without breaking through the milk surface. Only stir for about 20 strokes, then use your skimmer to stop the milk movement. The rennet will start working immediately and the milk should stay very still throughout this incubation period. Cover the pot and don't move the pot till it's done. Jiggling it might break the curd inside which will release whey and disrupt the process. Rennet only works once.
Incubate
Wrap the pot in a thick towel and let it sit undisturbed for 12-24 hours. In a cool environment it might take longer. If your room is very warm, check after 12 hours to see if your whey is separating. You'll see a curd cake in a bath of whey if it has. Take a knife and make a small cut into the curd to see if it breaks cleanly. If not, give it more time. Otherwise you can proceed.
Once the curd and whey start to separate and you get a clean break when you cut the surface of the curd, It's time to drain the curds.
Transfer The Curd
I like to pour off some of the whey first if possible into another container. But you don't need to do that. If your curd is a bit firm, you can cut a criss cross pattern into it to facilitate drainage later.
Line a second pot or large bowl with a cheesecloth. Take your skimmer and cut into the curd, taking slices and transferring them to the cheesecloth lined pot. Keep moving the whey from the pot to the cheese-lined pot until you have all of it. If you want to pour the rest on the bottom of the pot into the cheesecloth, do so carefully, using your skimmer to keep it from splashing too hard. You don't want to mash the curds.
Draining The Curd
Tie up the four corners of the cheese cloth and hang them over a large wooden spoon that is draped over the pot or you can hang it from a cabinet knob, or a hook that hangs from the ceiling which is what I use.
Now let it hang till it drains to the desired consistency. I usually give it 12-24 hours. Much depends on how warm it is and how firm your curd was. The former curd drains faster than the softer curd. Check after 12 hours and if there is still a lot of whey in the cheese, take it down and scrape the sides, turn the curds in the cheese cloth and hang it back up.
Once it's firm, you've got quark! Yay, that's all there was to it. How hard was that?!
Notes
Milk
Raw milk is going to yield the best results in every way and for its health benefits, it is not replaceable. I use only raw goats milk currently, but I had cows before and used raw cow's milk in the past and that works just as well.But I realize that raw milk is not available to everyone, and so I'll include instructions for pasteurized cow's milk. The good thing when making cheese with your pasteurized milk is that some of the good bacteria gets added back in, which makes pasteurized milk a little healthier again. Do avoid Ultra-pasteurized milk. This won't work for most cheese recipes because it has been over processed and denatured. It is structurally very different from raw milk and even from pasteurized milk.I use full fat goat's milk for my quark and it yields a very rich quark. But most quark you buy in Germany is actually low fat. You can use 2% milk to get a less fatty quark, which will most resemble what you can get in German markets. If you use raw, or un-homogenized cow's milk, just skim off some cream to use elsewhere and use the skimmed milk for quark.
Natural Starter culture
Here you have several options.Make your own starter culture if you have raw milk available. See how in the natural cheese making process and follow the instructions to make mesophilic culture. Or just follow the instructions on making bonny clabber, which will be your starter culture. This is the ideal and preferred way to make a natural, traditional quark.You can also use mesophilic whey from previous cheese making. Use the whey from any cheeses that had been cultured at medium temperatures.Another culture you can use is buttermilk from the store. However, you'll need to make sure that it contains live bacteria. This won't work with pasteurized buttermilk. The health food store might be your best place to get a live culture buttermilk.If you have access to milk kefir, it will make a superb starter culture for your Quark. I recommend live grains if you want to start your own. Kefir has a huge diversity of living organisms, greater even than yogurt and you'll get lots of good bacteria to feed your gut microbiome when using it. It isn't the best for all cheeses, but it is awesome for most. I've made all sorts of cheeses using kefir with great results. In fact if you can't find buttermilk with live bacteria in the store you might be able to find an unflavored milk kefir, which normally includes live bacteria. Check the label though.
Purchased Freeze Dried cultures
Your final option is a purchased mesophilic culture such as flora danica, which has a more diverse selection of bacteria than your standard freeze-dried mesophilic cultures, which are ideal for a soft cheese. You'll use 1/8 teaspoon and sprinkle it over the top of the warmed milk and let it rehydrate for a few minutes before stirring it in. Flora danica would be my first choice from all the freeze dried options.Alternatively you can purchase buttermilk culture. And you can also use freeze dried mesophilic culture, but it will not yield as good of a result due to the type of bacteria it is based on.In a pinch, purchased chevre culture or fromage blanc culture will also work. However, do not use rennet with these. It is already included.
Calcium Chloride
You don' t need this when you use raw milk. But since calcium becomes denatured by pasteurization, you might need it for pasteurized cow's milk. You can certainly try to make this without the calcium chloride though. It is possible that it will work. But if you have trouble getting your cheese to coagulate, I'd add some calcium chloride next time to see if this solves the issue.
Rennet
Rennet is optional for this cheese. Using rennet yields a firmer, quicker cheese, while omitting it yields a softer, creamier and tangier cheese that takes a little longer to make. I prefer it without rennet, but I often use rennet if I want it to go faster. It will set and drain quicker.I use kid rennet for my cheeses for two reasons. One, Walcoren uses all natural organic, non-gmo ingredients, and second, because I use goat's milk and I feel that it is a good match. I prefer the liquid kid rennet. This needs to be kept refrigerated. I've had my bottle for 6 years and it still works. You need very little for each batch of cheese. You can also get Walcoren Kid Rennet Tablets, I like them, they have a long shelf-life, but I find them harder to dose and they take a few minutes to dissolve.If you like, you can use kid rennet for cow's milk as well, it contains enzymes that can actually enhance the rather bland flavor of cow's milk in cheeses. Many cheesemakers add lipase to their cow's milk cheeses for this reason, but you can skip that if you use kid rennet in your cheese making. It already contains such enzymes.However, the most common rennet used is calf or animal rennet. Look for a non-GMO version.And some people use vegetable rennet. I heard that it makes aged cheeses bitter and that it is better used only on fresh cheeses. I have never used it and don't intend to. But it is an option if you prefer using vegetable rennet. We'll be using very little rennet to arrive at the soft, creamy nature of the cheese. It needs to be dissolved in water before getting added to the milk. Take a third cup of water and place three drops of rennet into it. Stir and use only a tablespoon of this mix per gallon of milk.
How to store the cheese
If you don't use the cheese right away, you can store it in a non-reactive container in your fridge for up to two weeks. You can salt it for longer storage. Use about one tablespoon of salt per gallon batch or one teaspoon per half pound of cheese.I age my salted soft cheeses for months, however they will have a stronger flavor as they get older. But this is how I get through my goat's dry-off period before they kid and before I have fresh milk again.
How to use Quark
There are countless recipes available in German cookbooks that use quark. It is so very common, even more so than cream cheese in America. For this reason it surprises me that it is not more common here where there are sizable German populations. It's like they came here and forgot about quark. I can't imagine that. Maybe they all just started making it at home? In any case, there are so many ways to use quark and if you do a search on-line you might find quite a few recipes. I'll list some here and I'll be posting some quark recipes in the future too, stay tuned.Quark Cheese cake - The famous German cheese cake is very different from the American dense versions. German cheese cake is fluffy and less fatty and has a fresh lemony flavor. Quite different from American cheese cake and quite wonderful.Quark Creme - This is a dessert that uses quark as a main ingredient. It is normally made with low fat Quark, whipped cream, and flavorings. I'll be posting an example soon for you.Quark Taschen - This is like a turn-over, "Taschen" translates to Pockets. It can be sweet or savory. Use a croissant or puff pastry dough and fill it with sweetened quark and fruits or salty quark and herbs. Here is a simple example for a sweet version in English.Mix fresh Quark with Herbs and Salt for a dip, or spread on bread or crackers.Mix fresh Quark with Honey and berries for a delicious and healthy sweet treat.Use it to make salad dressings or smoothies.Make Quark Ice Cream (similar to frozen yogurt).Use in place of ricotta cheese in baked dishes.Use in all cream cheese recipes for a lighter and healthier version! Stir into cream soups for a bit of tang, instead of sour cream. Use on baked potatoes and other dishes in place of sour cream. Use your imagination. Once you taste it I assure you that you'll come up with all sorts of ideas to use this versatile cheese.
So Now That You Have Some Wonderful Quark, Enjoy It!
The best thing about quark is that it's so versatile. I love it for its health benefits, but aside from that, it's just plain fun to use in cooking and baking and to make desserts. It's like a blank canvas, full of possibilities. Create something sweet or savory, hot or cold, plain or fancy.
