Farmers Cheese Tvorog Recipe (2024)

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This is my mom’s method of making farmer’s cheese. Grandma made this cheese in Ukraine. It takes a few days, but the steps are easy and the results are wonderful. Not to mention you will feel like a ninja after you’ve made your own cheese.

You end up with a good amount of farmers cheese and whey. Use organic milk for the best tasting cheese (I buy discounted organic milk that is about to expire just for this!). You can use the cheese to make syrniki or cheese crepes (nalesniki). Keep the whey (yellowish juice) to make bread.

Substitute water for whey and your bread will always taste better and it will be healthier since whey contains protein that is easy to digest. Are you a cheese ninja? How do you make your farmer’s cheese?

Ingredients for Farmers Cheese:

1 gallon whole milk (get the best quality you can; organic is best), At room temperature.
1/2 gallon Cultured low fat buttermilk, at room temp

What you will need:

4 layers of cheese cloth

Time to make:

3 days

Day 1:

1. Allow the milk gallon and buttermilk to come to room temperature on the counter (about 7 hours).

2. Pour milk and buttermilk into a large soup pot. Cover and place in a warm (100 ˚F) oven for 1 hour or until mixture feels luke warm.

3. Remove from oven and place in a warm room (I put mine on the floor next to the heating vent in the laundry room) and let it sit for 24 hours. When it’s done, it should become the consistency of sweetened condensed milk. It pulls when you lift it up with a spoon and should not really stick to your spoon if you insert it vertically and remove it straight out. Do not stir.

Day 2:

4. Place on the stove again over LOW HEAT, UNCOVERED for 40 minutes or until it is WARM. Do Not Stir. You have to heat it up slowly, since high temperatures destroy the nutritious protein.

5. Remove from stove and place in a warm room for another 24 hours (again, next to the heating vent on the floor).

Day 3:

6. Place on the stove over medium/low heat UNCOVERED for 40 minutes or until hot (do not boil). The cheese will separate from the whey. Turn off the heat and let it sit covered for an hour (this helps for the curds to separate as well).

7. Place 4 layers of cheesecloth over a large colander set inside a large bowl.

8. Pour cheese mixture over the cheesecloth.

Here’s the Leftover whey. Refrigerate this stuff and use it for bread. There will be some settling on the bottom

9. You can tie a knot with your cheesecloth and hang it over your kitchen faucet for 8-10 hours OR place a cutting board either in a baking dish or in the sink. Put bag of cheese on top. Cover with another cutting board and place a heavy weight over the top (i.e. dutch oven filled with water or a large jug of water).

10. Remove cheese after 10 hours and make something tasty or refrigerate. You can let it sit longer if you want a drier cheese.

So, how do you make your cheese?