How to Make the BEST Homemade Ricotta Cheese Recipe

Hi and welcome to Bold Baking Basics! This is where we get stuck into the fundamentals of baking. These videos are about getting you to bake with confidence, anytime, anywhere. So we love to make things from scratch here on Bold Baking Basics, like how to make your own homemade butter, cream cheese, and now ricotta from scratch. As always the recipe can be found on my website, BiggerBolderBaking.com and make sure you go over there because I've got tons of recipes. Okay, let's get started. So let's set ourselves up here, I've got a nice big bowl, into my bowl I'm going to lay a sieve, you can also use a strainer, and then into that I'm gonna lay some cheesecloth. Now if you don't have cheesecloth, don't worry, you can also use a very thin tea towel and that will work really well. You just need something that liquid can get through. So I'm gonna set this over to the side, and we're gonna start out on the stove, so get yourself a nice big pot to make your ricotta. So first things first, milk. We need a lot of milk, I use whole fat milk because the more fat, the better your ricotta will taste. So pour that into your saucepan. Our next ingredient is cream, another great addition to this cheese. Now you can use heavy cream, you don't need a whipping cream, you can use single cream, table cream, whatever you have. That's totally fine. So in you go. And then of course a little bit of salt, because you know me and salt, baking, sweet, savory, whatever it is, everything needs a little bit of salt. So this could not be simpler, all you have to do is just turn the heat on to roughly around a medium, and let this mix come to a simmer. Give it a little stir too. So this does look like a lot of milk, however the ricotta does make around 16 ounces, which is two cups of ricotta, so you get a decent amount. So if you're not familiar with ricotta, it's an Italian whey cheese, and it's really easy to make at home, it's super delicious. You will often have it in lasagna, cannolis are filled with it, that's really popular, and you can also have it on pasta. Lot's of different ways, even in cheesecakes, lots of different ways to use it. So you can use it both sweet and savory. So ricotta is just 4 ingredients, milk, cream, salt, and of course, an acid. Here I have some freshly squeezed lemon juice, you can also use a white vinegar, something that has very little flavor. I don't recommend using lime juice as I feel that's a little bit too strong. So our mix has just come to a simmer, I'm gonna lower the heat a little bit, and pour in our lemon juice. And then with your wooden spoon, give it a stir. So it takes a matter of seconds but almost instantly the curds will separate from the whey. This is exactly what we're looking for, look at that. Beautiful homemade ricotta. So, unfortunately, you can't use this method to make a dairy-free ricotta, as your dairy-free milk will not curdle. So as you can see that happened really fast, I'm gonna turn off the heat and we're gonna pour the contents of the pot into our strainer. Look at those lovely big curds, one thing that you'll notice is that I used a wooden spoon, I don't recommend using a whisk when making this, because I feel like it breaks down all those lovely lumps and you don't want that. So check that out. You have whey on the bottom, and then ricotta curds on top. Look at it all steamy, gorgeous. This is beautiful. The whey down here, I don't want you to waste that, waste not, want not. You can use this in baking, maybe making scones, bread, whatever you like, also it works really well for marinating meat and I'll tell you why. Because there's acid in that liquid, it will tenderize meat really well, so don't waste that. Put it in your fridge and use it for cooking and baking. And then with our curds, I'm gonna place it over a new bowl, and what we're going to do is just let this hang out, do its thing for an hour at room temperature, a little bit more liquid is going to come out and our ricotta is going to form. So I have seen questions before, why didn't my milk curdle, and if that happens, don't worry about it, it just means that you need a little bit more acid, little bit more lemon juice, or vinegar, and then it should curdle. So it's been an hour, our ricotta has let out a little bit more liquid, so what you do is just gather your cloth, give it a little bit of a squeeze, see there's a little bit of liquid left in there, just give that a bit of a squeeze out, like so. So like I said you can do many things with your ricotta, it is great on pizzas, lovely in cannolis, but what I love to do is have it on my homemade pasta, and that recipe can be found on my website. So I want you right now to head over to my website and check this recipe out, it is so simple and absolutely delicious. I'll see you back here really soon, for more Bigger Bolder Baking.