Making Cheese with the Wildes, Tottenham, London

I saw the offer of a cheese making class in a food magazine some time ago. But, only last week, we could take the time to visit this Tottenham micro-dairy, called Wildes Cheese run by two brilliant gentlemen: Phillip and Keith.

We opted for a short course of cheese tasting, and curd stretching to make our own mozzarella.
The night started deliciously with a tasting of a lemon flavored soft cheese, and a do-not-know-what-to-call-it-but-a-bit-feta-like cheese with chilli jam. Chilli jam is my new found love.

When everybody arrived, we wore our plastic aprons, and newly-recruited-sailor hats, and marched in to take a tour of the micro-dairy. Both Keith and Phil are passionate about their venture, and explained to us with much gusto how they get their milk from a single farm, where the cows are grazing in Sussex. And, then how they make their curd, and experiment with new flavors, and keep their cheese so that they can start forming the crust.

Of course there was a lot of cheese tasting! So so much of it.

 Then we started the class! After a demonstration, we gave it a go of putting hot water in the curd, handling and stretching it gently, and forming them into mozzarella bowls, or stretching them to plaid them into something more fancy.

 Left the place with lots of mozzarella cheeses, which went on top of the home-made pizzas. They taste gorgeous!  Thankfully, Phil and Keith gave us more curd so that we can make more!