Buttermilk Ricotta

Hello Hila! I wouldn't worry too much about giving credit to the original author of your recipe. This type of cheesemaking is ages old. The endresult has many local names. In my own country we still have a very ancient recipe for "mattentaart" a delicious one-portion pie, originating from the town Geraardsbergen in Belgium.

Mattentaart is recognized as a local speciality and is protected as such by the European Union. It's kind of a puff pastry filled with a mixture of eggs, sugar, almonds and "matte" which is made from 3 parts full fat milk and 1 part buttermilk, similar to your ricotta recipe.

These small pies probably date from the Middle-Ages. The word "matte" and "matton" were used in earlier times for this type of cheese made with full fat milk and buttermilk and is found in several dialect in Germany, France and Belgium. This is how mattentaart looks like;

(picture from nl.Wikipedia; http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattentaart)

They are not all that difficult to make when using bought puff pastry. When done, the filling should be somewhat crumbly but still moist, just like a fresh ricotta texture. Enjoy!

You will need;

Small round baking molds (or a big one), 2,3 liter fresh raw farm milk, 1,2 liter fresh buttermilk, 4 eggs, 235 gram sugar, a few drops vanilla and almondextract or 80 gram powdered almonds. Two sheets of puff pastry made with 100% good butter.

Preparation;

Boil the milk. As soon as the milk boils, add the buttermilk. Keep stirring and boiling on high fire for approx. 15 minutes until the milk curdles. Remove from the fire. Let the preparation drip out in cheese cloth during one night. The next day, remove the cheese from the cloth. Add the egg yolks, the beaten eggwhite, the sugar and the almonds and vanilla extract.

Finishing;

Put puff pastry in the molds and press well. Fill the molds with the cheese mixture. Cover with another sheet of puff pastry. Cut the redundant pastry off with a knife. Brush the puff pastry with egg white to give it a color in the baking process. Take a pair of scissors and cut a small cross on top of the pastries. This will allow the steam to escape and avoid hollow parts in the pastries. It will also provide that typical brown spot on top. Bake in the oven at 225°C for 30 minutes.

Puff pastry; translated from http://www.njam.tv/recepten/klassieke-frangipanetaartjes-met-een-frisse-toets

I took this recipe for puff pastry because this chef is a truly fantastic pastry chef. There's also a video if you want to see it. Just click the link I just posted where he's making frangipane pies using puff pastry. So the first part is the making of puff pastry... very interesting!!

You will need;

250 gram flour, 5 gram salt, 130 gram cold water, 200 gram good butter.

Preparation;

Put the flour on your workspace in a circle. Make a crater in the middle. Sprinkle the salt at the outside of the circle. Pour the water in the crater and add 25 grams of butter. Carefully mix water and butter with the flour until it forms a homogenous dough. Make a ball from that dough, wrap in clingfilm and rest it 10 minutes in the fridge.

Roll the ball into a square of approx. 8 mm thickness. Soften 175 gram butter and spread it over 2/3th of the dough. Fold the dough toward the middle, starting from the part that was not buttered, then fold the other side over it. Let's call this one lap of 3 overlapping parts. (Bakers call this one tour of three)

Dust your workspace with a little flour. Roll the dough in a square of 1 cm thickness. Fold again in 3 overlapping parts. You now have what they call two laps of three folded parts (including the previous mentioned lap). Wrap in clingfilm and let rest in the fridge for another 10 minutes.

Repeat the rolling and folding until you reach four laps of three folded parts, wrap again in clingfilm and rest 10 minutes in the fridge.

Repeat the rolling and folding until you reach six laps of three folded parts. Wrap and rest this time for 20 minutes.

You can now roll out the puff pastry thinly to be used in baking. How easy was that...