Kraft makes canned cheddar cheese. I've never eaten it but found it on Amazon for about $4.00 for a 7 ounce can. That's about $9.00 a pound for cheese, plus shipping. Considering I can buy shredded cheddar cheese from Costco for around $2.50 a pound, I needed to figure out if I could can this myself. Cream cheese costs between $2.00 and $2.50 a pound when it's on sale. I haven't seen it canned.
Last November 4th and 20th I wrote about canning cheese. I gave recipes for taking cheddar cheese and also cream cheese and melting them and then canning in a boiling water bath. I was pleased with the way the cheddar cheese jars turned out but not the cream cheese jars. We've used several of the cheddar cheese jars. They aren't great if I wanted a piece of sliced cheese but they do make a semi-solid cubed piece of cheese if we want to slice it and eat it that way. It shreds fine and cooks fine.
This morning as we were eating home made bagels and cream cheese from one of those 7 jars of cream cheese that I canned I realized that I never did a follow up to tell you how the canned cream cheese really turned out. I was really disappointed with the cream cheese when I was making the jars. They made a mess during the water bath. There was cheese caked on the lid that I had to scrub off. All the lids pinged anyway, although I didn't believe that the jars could actually have sealed.
I put the jars of cream cheese into the refrigerator. In the morning I cleaned it all up and opened one jar. It had a completely perfect seal. I don't know how but it did. I had to pry the lid off and it opened with a familiar swoosh of air coming into the jar. We ate that jar right away. I put the rest into the home store.
Last night after I made the bagels for today I took out a jar of the canned cream cheese. This morning we opened it, it had a great seal. The cream cheese seemed a little dry but I gave it a stir and it was as good as new. It was almost as easy to spread as the whipped cream cheese you can now buy. The consistency was good. I had read that canned cream cheese tasted cooked and would be more like eating cheesecake filling. That wasn't the case. I definitely recommend canning cream cheese if you like cream cheese.
I am a firm believer in coming home from the grocery store and putting almost everything into the storage pantry. I have a very small fridge and being able to buy cheese in bulk and then can it is going to open up a whole new world for us! It will save us money since I've always just had to buy cheese in small quantities which is really expensive.
ReplyDeleteWhy would cream cheese and a hard or soft cheese not kill you from the butulism, if your still alive to read this, I like to hear from you
ReplyDeleteI'm still alive. They are boiling water bathed which works. I suppose if I wanted to make it safer then I'd pressure can them.
ReplyDeleteMy mom never used a pressure canner for anything she put up. She processed fish, meat, vegetables, fruits etc. When my kids were young I never used a pressure canner. We always canned using the 3 hour water bath method and the jars sealed and we have lived long. No botulism.
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