The key to success is heating milk and cream slowly in stainless steel heavy duty sauce pan over low heat. Stirring often to prevent scorching and even heating milk to 185°F.

At this point adding buttermilk and vinegar, this starts the acidification process to milk to form curds.

Forming Cheese Curds:

After adding buttermilk and vinegar stir gently to distribute evenly. Then let the acidity do its work for about 15 minutes.

If there is still some milk solids that haven’t turned into curds add a little more vinegar to mixture and add very low heat this will help curd formation.

Give the curds a good gentle stir with spatula and curds should separate from the whey.

Straining curds from the whey:

Line double layer of cheesecloth over large strainer over a bowl. Ladle curd and whey into cheesecloth gently. Keep on ladling until all the curds and whey are transferred to strainer. The whey should collect in bottom bowl and curds into cheesecloth lined strainer.

Let the whey drain from the curds for good 15 minutes. Note might have to squeeze some whey out of the curds.

Add kosher salt to strained curds to boost flavor and help preserve ricotta cheese. Next drain all whey off from bowl, fold the excess cheesecloth over curds and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for good 12 hours or overnight.

Development of Ricotta Cheese flavor and texture:

Refrigerate the Ricotta Cheese Curds overnight helps develop the flavor profile and firms texture of Ricotta Cheese. The longer the curds drain and chill the firmer curd to a point no longer then 24 hours.

The texture of the Ricotta Cheese Curds are firm and slightly crumbly. Curds have mild rich fresh taste that can be transformed into many different purposes.

Creative uses for Ricotta Cheese:

The possibilities have so many different avenues to be explored. Spinach Ricotta Cheese filling for stuffed pizza, lasagna, stuffed shells are great areas to explore. Creaming the ricotta cheese with sour cream adding herbs like chopped fresh chives and garlic to make spread for appetizers or toasted bread. Whipping cream cheese and ricotta to make cheesecake. The possibilities are endless and using fresh homemade ricotta cheese makes everything taste so much better. Enjoy!

The post Ricotta Cheese Homemade appeared first on Creative Foods by Chef Dave Dettman.

The Crispy Rice Caramel Peanut Bars is combination on Scotchroo and Snickers flavor profile. There’s many of recipes out there with fantastic photos but not the right recipe to make what looks like in the photo. Most of these are AI generated photos looks great but it’s not what the normal recipe given. My goal is to show you step by step on how to make a wonderful no bake bar.

How to make a caramel sauce:

Caramel sauce is easy to do with a little practice and just a few ingredients. White sugar, heavy cream, butter and kosher salt is all that is needed. There’s a couple of ways to make this sauce, the easy way is to use dry skillet technique. Using dry 10 to 12 inch skillet melt white sugar over medium heat. This is tricky part, by shaking skillet around and swirling techniques melt sugar to amber color, with out burning sugar. This might mean having to lift skillet off heat so doesn’t get too hot and burn sugar. Don’t be tempted to use a spatula to still sugar this cause sugar to clump and not melt.

When sugar completely melted and light amber color add heavy cream and butter. Now stir continually until golden caramel sauce formed. Do not cook too long it will turn into hard caramel. Cook sauce to 230°F that should be nice sauce constancy. Do a testing of sauce consistency by pour some sauce onto cold plate. Let cool draw finger through sauce if it doesn’t run together its perfect. Add some kosher salt to caramel sauce, do taste testing for saltiness test. Now put into bottle for topping used it in this recipe.

The easy way out is to use store bought caramel sauce. They are good but not near as good as homemade version.

Rice Crispy Caramel Peanut layer:

Line a 9 by 13 inch pan with parchment paper to come all the way up the sides of the pan. Note spray the pan with vegetable spray first the parchment paper stick to pan better.

Next melt butter, peanut butter, caramel sauce and semi sweet chocolate chips in heavy duty 5 to 6 quart pan. Stirring often until all is combined, then add vanilla stir quickly. Remove from heat add the rice crispy cereal to melted mixture, stirring with spatula until all is combined well. Place rice crispy mixture into prepared 9 by 13 pan, spread evenly. Try using a measuring cup to help even out mixture. Place this pan into the refrigerator for good hour to cool and set up.

Caramel Layer:

After the crispy rice mixture is cool and set, remove from refrigerator. Pour just enough caramel sauce to cover over top of all rice crispy mixture. Smooth out with offset spatula evenly over all crispy rice. Then place the pan back into refrigerator to firm up the caramel sauce. This should take about 30 minutes.

Chocolate Layer:

While the pan is chilling in the refrigerator melt milk chocolate. The easy way is to melt in microwave at 50% power for 60 second intervals, stirring after each time. When melted if milk chocolate too thick thin out with coconut oil about 1 teaspoon at a time until pours easy. Some chocolates get very thick when melted. Next remove the pan from refrigerator and pour melted milk chocolate over top of caramel layer. Using offset spatula smooth evenly over top of pars. Then sprinkle chopped peanuts all over top of milk chocolate. Place back into refrigerator to set up the milk chocolate.

Dark Chocolate Garnish:

Mean while melt the dark chocolate in microwave at 50% power in 60 second intervals, stirring after each one. Make a pastry bag out of parchment paper or use zip lock baggie, pour melted dark chocolate into pastry bag or zip lock bag. Cut a small hole at end of bag. Remove bars from refrigerator, carefully drizzle dark chocolate over bars in back and forth manner creating nice drizzle garnish. Chill bars in the refrigerator until chocolate is set up.

Cutting Bars:

Remove pan from refrigerator, then lift pars from pan by parchment paper. Using sharp knife score pan 4 by 6. With sharp long knife cut trough bars, wiping knife with damp towel between each cut. After all bars are cut try freezing all cut bars for good 15 minutes. This set chocolate very hard easier to handle and package. Especially if they are going to be wrapped individually. Store refrigerated if warm area, or freeze in contain for 6 months.

The post Crispy Rice Caramel Peanut Bars appeared first on Creative Foods by Chef Dave Dettman.

Brat Prep for Sous Vide:

To make a Vacuum bags by cutting 11 inch wide vacuum bag plastic into 12 inch length. Sealing one end of the bag twice to make sure there is a good seal.

Place chopped onions, aromatics and brats into bag. Pour about 1/2 cup beef into bag. Using vacuum packaging machine set on gentle vacuum out the air from bag. When vacuum machine starts sucking out beer into machine stop process and hit the seal button. To insure that the bag has a good seal run sealing process twice.

Then set the Sous Vide temperature to 170°F water bath. When the target temperature is reached place sealed brats bag into water bath. Sous Vide the brats for 1 1/2 to 3 hours, slowly cooking. After long cooking time plunged into ice bath to cool rapidly. The sous vide bags can be stored in refrigerator for 7 days or frozen for one year, until ready to be finished cooking.

Cooking Brats:

Brats can be finished cooking many different ways, grilling is favorite way, giving best smokey flavors. Be sure to have the brats if frozen thawed before grilling. Grill brats over direct medium high heat 425°f to achieve good caramelization. Turning brats around as they cook with tongs. Once brats are caramelization, move brats to cooler side of the grill. Then can finish other accompaniments through grilling process.

Toppings and Accompaniments:

A well grilled brat needs a good bun, sturdy enough to handle all the toppings without falling apart. The suggested toppings, chopped onions, sauerkraut, pickled chilies peppers, bacon bits, shredded cheese, mustard, and ketchup. Toppings are subjective to each persons taste. Make a toppings and condiment bar for each person to put on their favorite toppings. Don’t forget the homemade pickles for side garnishing.

grill

The post Best Brats Sous Vide appeared first on Creative Foods by Chef Dave Dettman.

Lemon Drop Pepper Seasoning is citrus and garlic profile that has some kick from Lemon Drop Chilies. This is a wonderful all-purpose seasoning that goes good with lots of foods. Far more flavorful the store brand lemon pepper seasoning. The Lemon Drop Chilies have citrus flavors with heat of cayenne pepper. Pepper Joe’s is great source for these seeds and plants.

How to make Lemon Drop Seasoning:

Select ripe Lemon Drop Chilies that have nice yellow color, they will have best flavor profile. Wash chilies with cold water, wearing protective gloves, remove stems and coarse chop the chilies. Next zest lemons with micro plane zester, set aside in small bowl. Break apart garlic cloves from bulb and remove the skins. Place the coarse chopped chilies, lemon zest and garlic cloves into food processor fitted with cutting blade. Pulse chop the ingredients, scraping down the sides of work bowl between pulsing process. Continue pulsing processor until achieve minced consistency. The next step is to add kosher salt and some Sugar In the Raw with chopped ingredients. Pulse a few times to mix all the ingredients for Lemon Drop Pepper Seasoning. Taste a small amount of the mixture and evaluate its flavor profile. Make proper adjustments to your liking.

Dehydrate the Seasoning:

Using dehydrator tray fitted with silicone mat spread the moist Lemon Drop Pepper Seasoning all over the drying mat. Be sure that the seasoning is spread thin layer evenly, so drying process can be done quickly. Set the dehydrator at about 135 degrees for 24 hours. Check to see how dry the mixture is at 24 hour mark. Sometimes it takes 24 to 72 hours to completely dry out.

When Lemon Drop Pepper Seasoning is completely dry, wearing gloves break the mixture into small pieces and place in mortar and pestle. Grind the mixture until forms a medium grind small enough to go through holes of shaker. Store in spice jar with desiccate packet, this will keep the seasoning from clumping.

The post Lemon Drop Pepper Seasoning appeared first on Creative Foods by Chef Dave Dettman.

Add extra flavorings if you like to sugar cookie recipe, like almond extract or lemon extract. If you can fined vanilla bean paste that is excellent flavoring for cookies and icings too. Also use unsalted butter when ever possible, don’t use margarine the dough doesn’t handle as well rolling out. Margarine just doesn’t have that good sugar cookie flavor that butter brings to the cookie.

Tricks working with Sugar Cookie Dough:

Chilling the dough before rolling dough between two sheets of parchment paper. This technique helps keep the cookies tender, by not adding extra flour rolled into dough. Save extra scraps of sugar cookie dough after cutting out cookies. Using parchment paper techniques allows the rerolled a couple of times with no problems. The dough can be stiff when chilled so might have to put extra effort rolling from center outwards. The goal is to have between 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick dough, as evenly as possible.

Cutting out sugar cookies works best when cookie dough is cold, the cut out cookies tend to stick to cookie cutters. Flouring cookie cutters helps, by having a bowl of flour handy to dip the cookie cutter into flour. Another good trick is to peel the cookie dough off each side of the parchment paper. Just lifting parchment paper off cookie dough put paper back and dough and peel the other side of cookie dough. Next using cookie cutters cut out different shapes of cookies, dipping cookie cutters in flour often. Lifting cookies gently with offset spatula and place onto parchment lined sheet tray.

Making Royal Icing:

Royal Icing is simple to make by whipping egg whites, powdered sugar, vanilla and salt to light fluffy icing. This icing becomes hard as it drys, the bases for making color flow decorations onto cookies.

The flooding technique is method by applying flowing Royal Icing onto cookies with piped boarders. This takes practice and good pipping skills. Be patient color flooding on cookies takes some time to do, but well worth the time and effort put into decorating.

How to make flooding colors to decorate cookies.

Using Classic Royal Icing base needs to be thinned out to proper consistency to pipe even outlines. Take about 1 cup of Royal Icing in small bowl, add a teaspoon of water to icing stirring will. The consistency is important to achieve proper flow when piped onto cookie. This could take 1 to 2 teaspoons of water to achieve nice piping consistency that hold shape when boarder is pipped onto cookie.

Use a larger writing tip fitted into pastry bag, filled with thinned out Royal Icing to make boarder around cookies.

C

Colored Flooding Icing to decorated cookies

Flooding Icing is easy to make using Classic Royal Icing, food color gel and water to achieve proper consistency. Take cup of Classic Royal Icing placed in bowl, add a few drops of food color gel and teaspoon water. Mix and check consistency, the icing should flow steady and pool then disappear. This could take a couple of teaspoons of water to achieve just right consistency.

Once the right consistency is achieved the Flooding Icings can be poured into squirt bottles. Using the squirt bottles making the flooding process easier to apply to the cookies.

The post Holiday Sugar Cookies appeared first on Creative Foods by Chef Dave Dettman.

This is how to make chocolate extremely hot, by using capsaicin within the Carolina Reapers. Using the infusing of the Carolina Reaper flakes into the Cocoa Butter . Cocoa Butter is heat sensitive and needs to be handled carefully so can be tempered. The infusion is going to done using the Sous Vide process, controling the temperature precisely.

Creating good cocoa butter infusion:

How to achieve good infusion into cocoa butter by using Carolina Reaper Chili flakes and cocoa butter in mason jar. If you don’t have Carolina Reaper Chili flakes get them from Pepper Joe’s.

Caution when handing any type of super hot chilies, be sure to ware protective gloves. Trust me from experience not using gloves the capsaicin soaks into skin and burns hands for hours. Then if you touch other sensitive parts of body it transfers and burns. So ware gloves when doing this process.

Fresh Carolina Reaper chilies need to be dried completely, use dehydrator for good 36 to hours on 130° F. Then place dried chilies into mason jar with desiccate packet and seal tightly. The desiccate packet will remove any remaining moisture in chilies. This could take a few days. Remove the chilies out of jar, take the stem off chilies, and crush with mortar and pastel. Next place crushed chilies into sterilized mason jar and add equal amount of cocoa butter buttons.

Sous Vide method of infusion:

Secure lid onto mason jar making sure no water can enter the jar. Add water to a 6 quart stock pot and set circulation immersion to 125°F. When water reaches 125°F add the sealed jar of cocoa butter and chilies into water. Set time for at least 3 hours. Shake the jar of cocoa butte and chilies every 30 minutes, this helps to distribute chilies and melted cocoa butter.

After the cocoa butter and chilies have been sous vide for at least 3 hours the infusion needs to be strained. To strain the chili flakes out of the infusion use four layers of cheesecloth lined over strainer into another mason jar. Pour carefully allowing the infused cocoa butter to drain into jar. Squeeze the flakes by twisting the cheesecloth, note be sure to wear gloves when handling infusion. The capsaicin will burn hands and transfer to other parts of body because it’s now into the cocoa butter.

The post Carolina Reaper infused Cocoa Butter appeared first on Creative Foods by Chef Dave Dettman.

The recipe does have some molasses to provide flavor and extra moisture. The Gingerbread Loaf needed extra boost of ginger flavor by adding some freshly grated ginger root and diced candied ginger. All these extra additions make’s a very flavorful tasty loaf.

Baking these loafs in four mini loaf pans helped keep portion sizes down. Making Gingerbread in a standard loaf pan can tend to cut too large slice for portions. Large slices of Gingerbread even with reduced sugar still has lots of carbohydrates. The goal is to have smaller amounts of carbohydrates, so smaller loafs gives smaller slices of Gingerbread yielding less carbohydrates.

The post Gingerbread Loaf Reduced Sugar appeared first on Creative Foods by Chef Dave Dettman.

Using mini loaf pans with 350 gram of batter makes a prefect small loaf for meal. The recipe has enough batter to make four USA mini loaf pans.

Pumpkin Bread Light tricks:

Replacing sugar with Truvia Complete and adding some honey to boost flavor help great remove some of carboyarhates. Also by replacing over half of flour with King Arthers White Wheat Flour adding more complex carboyarhates, but still keeping 1/3 of unbleached flour for more structure. With all the changes made still tastes like good pumpkin bread. Making them in USA mini loaf pans helps keep portion size down, plus keeps bread more fresh. To preserve the freshness of bread wrap each loaf with plastic wrap then wrap with foil. These mini loafs can be frozen for up to 6 months without any flavor loss. The mini loafs defrost quickly rather than making them in a standard one pound loaf pan.

Pumpkin Bread add ins:

Mixing the batter is straight forward, combine sugar, honey, oil, water, pumpkin together first in mixer bowl with paddle attachment on medium speed. Next sift tougher flours, spices, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in small bowl. With the mixer on low speed add flour mixture to batter, continue mixing until all combined together. Stop mixer scrap bowl down and mix again for 45 seconds. Next is add-ins like dark chocolate, nuts, pumpkin seeds what ever your creative wishes. Mix on stir mode until evenly combined.

Using a digital scale set on grams zero scale with greased pan. Start with about 350 grams of batter in each of four mini pan. If you have extra batter divid the batter between each pan. Sprinkle Sugar In The Raw over each loaf. Bake in 350°F oven for about 35 to 40 minutes. Test with toothpick test, if comes out clean it’s done. Cool on wire rack for 5 minutes in the pan, then remove each loaf from pan and continue cooling on the wire rack. When completely cool wrap first in plastic wrap then foil. The Pumpkin Bread Light loafs can be frozen for at least 6 months with out flavor loss. Enjoy!

The post Pumpkin Bread Light appeared first on Creative Foods by Chef Dave Dettman.

Hungarian Goulash is perfect cooler weather comfort food. This Goulash is similar to beef stew but has a rich red sauce made with lots of paprika. This recipe used Leutschauer Pepper from garden that dried and ground into a bright red powder. The flavor and color of garden fresh chilies makes big difference from store bought brands of paprika. The paprika is used to make a special vegetable paprika roux with oil and flour, giving the Goulash a deep red color and flavor.

Finding the right pepper for Hungarian Goulash:

Planting over 3 different varieties of peppers from Pepper Joe’s the Leutschauer Pepper had best yield and flavor. Their large bright chilies dried and ground into beautiful bright red color, full of flavor perfect for a Goulash.

The post Hungarian Goulash appeared first on Creative Foods by Chef Dave Dettman.

Freshness counts:

Find fresh peaches at the peak of season when cost is reasonable, around late July through August. Also this is when the Carolina Reapers start to get ripen to bright red color. Be sure to ware gloves when handling the Carolina Reapers, suggest to wear double layer when chopping chilies. Be careful not to touch your eyes, face or any sensitive part of body. The capsicum is extremely volatile will cause burning sensation for hours.

When working with fresh peaches first wash peaches well with cold water and drain them. Next get a boiling water started to blanch peaches. Cut an X in bottom each peach then place them in boiling water for about 60 seconds. Remove them from the boiling water into ice bath to shock peaches. This makes peeling peach skins easier, followed by cutting peach in half and removing the pit. Chop the peaches into medium size pieces, and place peaches into container, like quart measure cup. Mash peaches well, this is extremely important step, mashing peaches helps extract natural pectin in peaches.

Measuring is important:

Measuring the exact amount of mashed peaches is very important to achieve perfect peach to sugar ratio. Don’t go by number of peaches used or sliced peaches, but the amount of mashed peaches. Measure each ingredient in recipe perfectly. The only variable is amount of Carolina Reapers added to the jam. This is up to the individuals preferences, the more Carolina Reaper added to more burning heat. I suggest starting with one chopped Carolina Reaper to 8 ounce jar of jam. Test heat leave before putting jam into the jars to be preserved. Word of caution Carolina Reapers are extremely hot many people are not use to that much heat. No pain no gain, go for it.

Using the right peach jam ingredients:

To achieve a good set jam choosing the right pectin and preservative is important. Good quality pectin like Classic Ball Pectin works well with peach jams. Ball Fruit Fresh is good preservative to help maintain bright peach color. Mixing the mashed peaches and chilies with the pectin and riesling wine and Ball Fruit Fresh first in heavy duty pot. Then bring peach mixture to full boil, stirring often for good minute. Next add the sugar stirring constantly, again bring back to a boil and cooking for one minute. Doing these steps will insure a great jam set. A common mistake is to mix all the jam ingredients together and cook for a minute, giving you often bad results.

The post Peach Reaper Jam appeared first on Creative Foods by Chef Dave Dettman.