Customer Reviews

The Home Creamery

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you've never tried making butter, yogurt, etc. and you just want to learn how to make a reasonable quart of yogurt or marscapone (as opposed to trying to be a diary expert), this is a good and useful book. The instructions are clear and concise, and it doesn't bog you down with too much technical data. After all, showing the kids how to make butter shouldn't require a master's level course in chemistry. If you have illusions about becoming some kind of master craftsman with your homemade ricotta, this book probably will disappoint.

Two things potential buyers should be aware of:
1. About 2/3 of the book is recipes for using basic dairy items. Maybe that's helpful to some, but wouldn't someone wanting to make their own cottage cheese already know what to do with it? The recipes are fairly run-of-the-mill. I didn't see any that I didn't already have in another source.

2. While the font size is large, the font style (the actual lines) is very thin, and the text is in a medium-brown ink against a off-white page. In other words, there is little contrast and it makes for poor legibililty unless you have extremely good vision (which I don't). Even my eagle-eyed spouse found the font color/type annoying and difficult. In addition, the binding doesn't allow th book to lay the book flat unless you break the spine. To publishing houses: How-to and cookbooks should be functional first and foremost. Attractive is nice, but the user shouldn't have to fight to read the font or keep the book open so s/he can work from it.

I have a lot of cookbooks, and besides making recipes from them, I simply enjoy reading them, getting the author's perspective etc. I bought this book hoping for an in depth introduction to making cheeses at home, plus some tips and tricks from someone who knows what they are doing. And well, this book is just boring. It certainly has easy to follow recipes for the basics -- yogurt, ricotta, butter, farmer's cheese -- but doesn't go beyond this. And the writing is sterile and without character.

Basically, my takeaway message is there is nothing in this cookbook (recipes, directions, witty writing even) that I couldn't easily find elsewhere, and is a boring read. Don't waste your money.

This is a good beginners book for soft cheese making. There are lots of easy-to-follow recipes for everything from butter to creme fraiche to mozzarella, just about any soft cheese you can imagine. Another nice quality this book has is that there are usually a few variations for a particular recipe, which comes in handy if you are short on a particular ingredient. I've made several recipes from this book with both cow's milk as well as goat's milk that have all come out well. Some of the recipes are a little confusing and leave a little room for guessing. As with anything, the first time trying a new recipe may be a little awkward, but you'll soon get the hang of it. I would definitely recommend this book to new cheese makers.

This is an excellent book to get started on milk culturing. Goes over basic cheeses, cultured milk like buttermilk, yogurt, kefir, sour cream, piima milk etc. Plus butter and recipes then to use your cultured milk for!

If you've already been doing cultured milk and cheese than this book isn't going to take you anywhere new. However this book is great to get your feet wet, teach a newbie the ins and outs of culturing, and gives some tasty recipe ideas. A great book!

I enjoyed this book as I was just stepping out into the world of cheese making and had no clue. It was clear and concise and used everyday ingredients that you could recognize. I first tried the recipes I had already made using recipes from other sources and those turned out great. I actually had been making yogurt for a while but the recipe in the book was easier to follow. The ricotta was soooo good that I make it often. I enjoyed cooking from this book immensely. I enjoyed just reading through it also. I love to read cookbooks. There were a lot of recipes that were not for making cheese, those could have been left out I think but all in all I would recommend this book to others interested in making their own cheese.

I did not know it would be so easy to make your own butter, sour cream, creamcheese etc. This book is a asset to anyone wanting to feel the satisfaction of doing your own thing towards living a healthier life knowing the incredients of the dairy products they consume, rather than just buying off the shelf and stuffing your body with preservatives.

Great book with simple recipes to start making cheese and dairy products at home. Excellent reference book and fun to do the mozzarella!

Love love love this book. Full of great, easy to understand and follow recipes. It even includes a list of things you need to get your cheese making process going and a few websites to find the items at!!! If you're looking to jump into soft cheese making then this is a great book to start with. I've been happy with all I've tried out of it so far....so yummy!

If you're interested in making easier soft cheese, this book is full of information for making simpler soft cheeses and soft cultured things like yogurt.
I do make a lot of our simpler cheese and yogurts already and I wanted recipes that were easily on hand for making other ones. The instructions for making them are well explained, and there are a few variations on some of the recipes like mozzarella so you can decide which technique you want to try including instructions for making it in the microwave.
For those sorts of easy unripened soft cheese, this book is wonderful. I got in Kindle format, it was very readable and navigable.
The reason I gave it 4 stars is because the recipe section while it had some recipes that would really show your handmade cheeses to an advantage and be a great way to show them off, many of the recipes simply called for homemade butter to substitute for regular butter and wouldn't be the best showcase for your brand new skills.
Other than that, it's a great book for learning how to make very basic cheeses, it's inexpensive, it's a fun book to use with younger cooks to learn from, and simple cheeses and yogurt are great ways to extend the life of milk. The recipes all call for very fresh milk, but I use milk that's closer to it's expiration date to culture and it makes it last a bit longer.

As a beginner to cheese making, this book is wonderful. I found the instructions easy to understand and the results were delicious. Now I make all my cheese & butter. Thanks to the author. My family & I love it.