Many of my recipes call for fat free Fromage Frais / Quark, but it's not always easy to find outside continental Europe. There is a way you can make your own Fromage Frais at home, by draining fat free yogurt.
What you'll need
- a cotton cloth, not a cheese cloth (cheese cloth is too thin)
- a rubber band and
- a glass jar.
Directions
- Cover the glass jar with the cloth and then push the cloth into the jar, forming a "bag". As you can see in the photo, this "bag" hangs from the top of the glass jar and it doesn't reach the bottom of the jar.
- Use the rubber band to secure the cloth
- Pour fat free yogurt into the "bag"
- Let drain for about 8 hours. (You can cover the jar with a lid if you want to)
- The whey of the yogurt will drip trought the cloth and fall to the bottom of the jar. You'll get a soft creamy cheese, thicker than greek yogurt.
- Drain it for 24 hours and you'll have fat free yogurt cheese (similar to cream cheese)
- Use the rubber band to secure the cloth
- Pour fat free yogurt into the "bag"
- Let drain for about 8 hours. (You can cover the jar with a lid if you want to)
- The whey of the yogurt will drip trought the cloth and fall to the bottom of the jar. You'll get a soft creamy cheese, thicker than greek yogurt.
- Drain it for 24 hours and you'll have fat free yogurt cheese (similar to cream cheese)
Now you can use your Fromage Frais to prepare a cheesecake, bake oatbran muffins...
Tip: don't throw away the whey. I use it to wash my face and neck in the mornings. Whey is rich in lactic acid and leaves your skin soft and fresh. Cleopatra is reported to have bathed in sour milk (also rich in lactic acid) to improve her complexion. If it was good enough for her... :D
Give it a try!
More about lactic acid and it's use in dermatology, heredermatology.about.com/cs/skincareproducts/a/aha.htm
I've been reading up on making fromage frais or quark. I think that while your method might give a similar texture, fromage frais is a real cheese (albeit a simple one). It sounds almost as easy as yours though! I've found a few that call for whole milk and buttermilk, but the only skim milk variety I've found calls for using a starter culture. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYou're right, I've been making homemade soft cheeses for years, using starter culture, renet, calcium chloride, etc and also draining yogurt. Two years ago I joined some Dukan diet groups and forums, to share recipes with other dieters and one of the most frequent questions was "I can't find fat free fromage frais or fat free cream cheese, what can I do?"
ReplyDeleteDraining yogurt is something anyone can do: you don't need special ingredients or utensils.
This might not be the real thing but it's a very simple way of getting the same texture and flavour. I'm from Spain: fat free fromage frais is easy to find here (as a matter of fact the pots in the photo are from fat free fromage frais) so I can compare between this yogurt-fromage frais and real fromage frais, and believe me, they are a perfect match.
When you drain a yogurt it thickens, of course, but at the same time it's nutricional values change: the whey you get from draining yogurt it's not plain water, but water + lactic acid + carbs (lactose). So, the resulting yogurt-quark or yogurt-cream cheese have less lactose and less carbs than yogurt.
There's another way of to replicate fat free quark: Mixing fat free greek yogurt and cream cheese makes an acceptable fromage frais substitute for baking and it's quickier to prepare.
Of course, you can also heat skim milk, add a started culture, etc.
Thank you for your comment, it's the very first one I've got in this blog and I'm so excited about it.
Greetings from Galicia and good luck!
TRIED AND GOT RESULT ..... U R A GENIUS SIMPLY BRAINY GIRL.....U ROCK DUKAN ROCK
ReplyDeleteI LOST 2.5 KG IN A WEEK THANKS AND U R MY HELPER....
I am so glad! Thank you very much for your nice comment
ReplyDelete