Soft cheeses. Updog Designs / Getty Images via Canva Pro.
A soft cheese is a cheese with a good deal of moisture in it, keeping its texture so soft that it is usually spreadable.
Making soft cheeses
The process of making soft cheeses differs from making “hard cheeses” in that the curds aren’t pressed to squeeze out the whey, as they would be for instance in making a hard cheese such as Cheddar. Consequently, they have a high moisture content, making them ideal growing places for mould. This is taken advantage of in making the ripened soft cheeses, as in Camembert or Brie, though you don’t want to see green mould growing on top of the unripened ones, such as when you open a tub of cottage cheese or quark in the morning.
Ripening, in the case of soft cheeses, means aging the cheese for a few weeks. Unripened soft cheeses are the simplest ones to make, and so could be made by any farm or country dweller with little experience or time. Unripened soft cheeses are also simply called “fresh cheeses.”
The ripening is done in moist environments:
“Dry surroundings are necessary for cheeses which are to be hardened; a moist environment suits soft cheeses and promotes the growth of surface organisms.” — Davidson, Alan. The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 2014. P. 164. Kindle Edition.
Ripened soft cheeses are mostly continental European in origin, whereas British and North American soft cheeses traditionally were more likely to be unripened.
Any kind of milk can be used in making soft cheeses, whole or skim, cow, goat or sheep. Many soft cheeses are enriched with added cream as well. The milk used to be left to sour naturally, but this won’t work with pasteurized milk, so starters have to be added instead.
Fat content of soft cheeses
The fat content of soft cheeses varies greatly from one type of cheese to the other.
- Full Fat Soft Cheese: minimum 20% fat, maximum 60% moisture
- Medium Fat Soft Cheese: fat content from 2 to 20%, maximum 70% moisture
- Skim Milk Soft Cheese: maximum 2% fat content, maximum 80% moisture
Soft cheese as a recipe ingredient
Soft cheese is a generic recipe ingredient term mostly used in the UK. It means the recipe writer isn’t fussy: s/he just wants some type of soft cheese. Cottage cheese is the preferred type of soft cheese in the UK and in North America. Curd cheese, cream cheese, ricotta, quark, pot cheese, and the soft variety of hoop cheese also count as generic “soft cheese.” All of these would satisfy the recipe’s requirement for a “soft cheese.”
Cooking Tips
“Soft cheeses with a very high water content, for example cream and curd cheeses, give a very tender texture, as required in cheesecake and Danish pastries.” [1]Davidson, Alan. The Oxford Companion to Food (Oxford Companions) (p. 165). OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.
Some soft cheeses
- Añejo Cheese
- Banon Cheese
- Bonchester Cheese
- Boursin Cheese
- Brie Cheese
- Brillat-Savarin Cheese
- Bruss Cheese
- Burrata Cheese
- Caboc Cheese
- Camembert Cheese
- Casu Marzu
- Chaource Cheese
- Chèvre Frais
- Cornish Yarg Cheese
- Crottin de Chavignol Cheese
- Crowdie Cheese
- Cumulus Cheese
- Edel de Cléron Cheese
- Feta Cheese
- Fresh Cheeses
- Garrotxa Cheese
- Kirkham Lancashire Cheese
- La Tur Cheese
- Lancashire Cheese
- Le Cendrillon Cheese
- Lymeswold Cheese
- Mizithra Cheese (Fresh)
- Oaxaca Cheese
- Oxford Isis Cheese
- Pié d’Angloys
- Pithiviers au foin cheese
- Prescinseua Cheese
- Saint André Cheese
- Squacquerone Cheese
- St-Nectaire Cheese
- Telemes Cheese
- Teviotdale Cheese
- Tornegus Cheese
- Vacherin d’Abondance
- Vacherin Mont d’Or
- Wensleydale Cheese with Cranberries
- Whirl Cheese
References
| ↑1 | Davidson, Alan. The Oxford Companion to Food (Oxford Companions) (p. 165). OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition. |
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