I love it when I get to play chef, so when I learned that we were going to be making cheese in Boracay with no less than The Cheese Dude, Mark Todd, himself, there was no way I was letting this chance pass. I already told you in a previous post how Mark taught us all the amazing ways that craft beer can be paired with cheeses, so in this blog post, I’m going to show you through a series of photos what transpired in our amazing cheese-making workshop.
On our second day in Boracay, we donned our aprons because Mark was going to show us how to make butter the old-fashioned way as well as how to make our own cheese! After all, it’s not a cheese workshop if you don’t get to learn the processes behind producing cheese. We were broken up in pairs and I wound up with Camille, one of the nicest, smartest, and funniest fashion bloggers I’ve ever met. The set-up was super beautiful that I got so excited to try my hand (and luck!) at making cheese for the first time.
We were given a choice to make either ricotta or queso blanco. To be honest, we chose queso blanco because the procedure in making it seemed simpler (LOL), but we didn’t realize how delicate it can really be. Using Real California Milk, a stockpot, a whisk, and an acid (we used apple cider vinegar for the activity), you can transform whole milk into cheese curds and finally into real, edible cheese!
Butter making was as exhausting as it was challenging and fascinating. Imagine this: we were only given a mason jar and a carton of Real California Milk heavy cream, and we had to produce butter by lots (and I mean lots) of vigorous shaking. It felt like a real arm workout and I tried 3 times but I never got to produce anything that vaguely resembles butter! However, just as the workshops were about to finish, my partner Camille was able to make some—after letting me undergo what seemed like a complete gym session, hahaha! I love it!
My main takeaway from this activity is that dairy production is such a precise science and that so many factors—temperatures, mixing methods, measurements, quality of ingredients of course—come into play. It’s more like baking instead of general cooking, where in you can still add seasoning or water or whatever to adjust your food according to your preference even if it’s cooked or almost done. Here, one mistake and you will potentially have to start all over again. Kudos to our cheesemakers and dairy producers who studied really hard and underwent lots of experiments in order to give us the awesome cheese platters that we are enjoying now with our wines and beers!
Later that night, we had a farewell dinner at the beautiful gardens of Shangri-La Boracay, and over scrumptious food I shared a few more stories and laughs with fellow bloggers, the people from Real California Milk, and of course, The Cheese Dude. The real surprise was when they started announcing the winners of the workshops (Best Cheeseboard, Best Butter, Best Cheese) and Camille and I won the Best Cheeseboard award! I am so stoked that the judges loved the variety of cheeses we selected and the way we designed our cheeseboard (I was still a little inspired from my Gaggan meal two days before, maybe that helped, hahaha!). I was not counting at all to win Best Butter, and it went to the pair who made butter with the nicest quality in the smallest amount of time: my friend Clarisse (The Tummy Train) and the lovely Nicole Andersson!
Needless to say, the night wore on with endless food, wines, and beers, and I just felt happy that I was part of such an exciting, informative event like this with Real California Milk. Not sure if I would be starting my dairy company anytime soon (LOL), but I definitely would be scouring the streets of Manila for amazing cheeses to munch with my favorite wines and beers.
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Real California Milk dairy products are available in the following stores:
- S&R Membership Shopping
- Royal Duty Free
- Landers Superstore
- SM Hypermarket
- Merkado/Puregold Price Club
- Cash & Carry
- Rustans Supermarket
- Robinsons Supermarket
- Unimart Supermarket
- SM Supermarket
- Makati Supermarket
- Landmark Supermarket
Follow Real California Milk Philippines' Facebook page for more information about California dairy.
Have you tried making cheese? Which cheese is your favorite?
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