More success with crème fraiche experiments. As I hoped, adding more culture did help thicken up last nights new batch of crème fraiche.

                                 Heating up the cream

 Stirring in the culture

Jars all ready to go into the water bath

 Crème Fraiche after 14 hours of culturing and 3 hours of refridgeration

 Nice, thick Crème Fraiche





 Thick success!

Additionally, I discovered, very much by accident, that more culture is not the only way to make thicker crème fraiche. After I put my newest batch on to culture, I returned to my first batch of successful crème to create a couple of sampling options. First, I made a salmon dip using half of the thinner batch. Secondly, I made a lemon-herb dip using the other half of the thinner batch. I processed all the herbs and lemon in a food processor, then added the thin crème fraiche and continued blending it all together. When I stopped the machine and took the lid of, there, to my surprise, was nice, thick and fluffy crème fraiche dip! This nice surprised was followed by a 'Duh' moment, when I realized that of course vigorously blending crème fraiche would make it thicker, because its made of cream after all! I don't know why I didn't think of  it before accidently stumbling upon it accidently.

 

What a beautiful surprise! It is so much thicker than when it went in.

 Lemon, chive, and dill crème fraiche

 Here is some nice, whipped detail

Smoked salmon and parsley crème fraiche dip

 

 

I'm so excited about these results that I'm planning on making quarts of crème fraiche at the end of this week so that I can serve some of these crème fraiche dips at my birthday dinner. 



Success!!! I made up a batch of crème fraiche last night, let it do its culture thing overnight and put it in the fridge before work. I followed the directions as closely as humanly possible and the results paid off. When I got home from work, waiting for me in the fridge was a slightly sweet, slightly tangy, albeit a bit runny, near-perfect batch of crème fraiche! What a relief to know it works. I'm going to whip up another batch this evening, this time using a little bit more starter to see if I can get it to thicken up a little bit more (plus then I'll have some to enjoy at home). Now just to figure out the best way to serve it.



            So, the first round of crème fraiche ended up turning into a batch of strongly flavored farmers cheese. It was not as bad as the original taste test led me to believe, but still not what I was aiming for. Moving forward, I'm going to buy a little crème fraiche from the co-op to re-inspire me (and to find an excuse to work it into my food budget) and continue researching recipes. Since it takes so little time to make, I'll aim to make another batch this week, leaving room to make two more if the next attempt should fail. This will leave me enough experimentation and time to either hone in on the process of making crème fraiche or get a lot of practice in letting go of expectations.
           On an ironically related note, my first failed attempt at crème fraiche and subsequent success at making too-strong farmers cheese proved to be serendipitous in some way. The domain name of this blog (Dommage Fromage) is an invented French phrase that means nothing to the French, but a lot to me. They are two words that mean nothing together, but when separated mean "too bad" (dommage) and cheese (fromage). I like the nonsense phrase precisely because it is nonsense, but also because of the feeling behind the word dommage, if said with the right inflection is like claiming "oh well" while shrugging your  shoulders; its recognizing that something didn't work out and deciding not to care. When hunting around on the internet for more about the word dommage I found a website that says the French use the word when things don't go your way or the way you expected. Now, when paired with the word fromage, my favorite old saying suddenly perfectly sums up my experience making crème fraiche: "Oh well, cheese!"



 



         I decided to follow the directions that came with my crème fraiche culture, at least for this first round. They were just too simple to pass up. The directions said to heat one quart (4 cups) of raw cream to 78 degrees and then add the culture, allowing it to soak for 2 minutes before stirring it until it is dissolved. It then says to cover and let sit at 72 degrees for up to 12 hours, or until thickened, then to refridgerate and enjoy.

      

 

 

Cream heating on the stove 

 

 Trying to get the right temperature

 

 Crème fraiche culture

 

 Cream and cultures mixture in jars

 

Jars submerged in a warm water bath to keep a consistent

 temperature (I put the lid on after the picture was taken)

 

      Now, here are the ways I (unintentionally!) deviated from those instructions. First off, I somehow let the cream get to 100 degrees, so I had to let it sit a cool for a bit. I added the culture at a slightly higher temperature, somewhere around the mid-eighties and began trying to dissolve the culture right away before I remembered it had to sit for a couple of minutes. I then allowed it to do so and then stirred it at the point the directions specified. I poured the cream and cultures mixture into 2 pint jars, which I then submerged in 100 degree water in a crockpot, to help keep the temperature up, but not too hot. I then left for my Anatomy class and when I came back to temperature had barely gone done at all (woops!). Now, just a four hours in and there seems to be a cheese-like mass in the jar, surrounded by what I can only imagine is whey. More updates on when I figure out what possibly could be going on.....

 Look at that whey!

 

 I wish my yogurt came out this thick, not my crème fraiche

 

Trying to strain it and chill it to see if maybe the lack of whey

will make it taste better....if that is even possible.

 

 

 

        Alright, batch # 1 has turned out to be a failure. It probably has a lot to do with letting it sit at too high a temperature. For the next round I am going to try and find another recipe, if for no other reason than to compare and contrast methods. In the meantime, my partner Nick and I will be gargling mouthwash and watching kung fu in an attempt to try and forget what just put in our mouths.....

Alright, I finally got my hands on a half gallon of raw cream (the farmer usually saves the cream for his wife, who makes cultured butter out of it. Yum). Also, my starter arrived in the mail, so now all I need is a little bit of time to devote to the process. I have decided to scratch the plan of making multiple batches using different starters, as the cream is rather hard to come by and multiple batches will mean more crème fraiche then I can handle (surprisingly), so I'm going to stick with the crème fraiche starter I purchased. I will use a quart of the cream to make this first round of crème fraiche, which bodes well for my personal yogurt making endeavors, as now I'll have a quart of cream to add to the raw milk I use for yogurt, which will quickly raise my yogurt out of the kind-of-lame-and-watery category and into the oh-my-god-I-think-this-might-be-custard category.
     Coming soon! How to not gain 10 lbs. when taste testing an entire 1 quart batch of crème fraiche in one sitting!!!

Why make crème fraiche? With heavy cream as its main component, I hardly feel I need to explain any further. For those of you that don't know, crème fraiche is sour creams fancy cousin, known to be a bit creamier, but still with a nice tang. There are a few ways to make crème fraiche and I aim to try three of them, so as to compare the results and choose the recipe I like the best.

For all three I will need:
      1 pint-1 quart heavy cream (I will probably use raw cream)
      1 glass jar for each batch
I will then adjust the starter culture for each batch, so as to see how they compare. For the starters I will use:
      Buttermilk
      Yogurt
      Crème fraiche culture which includes lactose, (LLC) lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris,(LL) lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis, (LLD) lactococcus lactis subsp. biovar diacetylactis, microbial coagulant enzyme, which I have ordered from a cheese making company.