I accidentally made a creamy delicious feta like tasting cheese when I tried to make cheese out of boxed Trader Joes Whipping Cream.

I had 3 8oz. boxes of boxed Trader Joes Whipping Cream for the shelf and I wanted to make them into mascarpone cheese before they expired. (ricotta is made the same way but with the addition of whole milk.

I know that you need heavy cream for cheese making.

I know whipping cream is NOT what you are suppose to use for cheese making.

Unfortunately majority of  grocery stores near where I live don’t sell heavy cream so I use whipping cream all the time without a problem until this time.

I had my cream and a pinch of salt at a slow boil let it go a little like I always do and kept adding lemon juice and noticed it wouldn’t curdle. Lemon Juice always makes the cream curdle something was wrong. As a last ditch effort I added some vinegar and it still wouldn’t curdle but it slightly thickened.  I tried to save it and I drained the mixture over night.

I looked at it the next day and I got a cheese with a cream cheese like texture that taste like really good creamy fresh made feta you’d find at farmers markets or only taste at high end restaurants. Not at all like that supermarket crumbly cardboard like flat tasting feta. Somehow the extra lemon juice and the addition of white vinegar made the whipping cream taste like really good feta cheese.

It turns out that the boxed for-the-shelf cream has more carrageenan gum in it than refrigerated cream and is similar to manufacturing cream. Unfortunately when you purchase cream you have no idea how much carrageenan gum is in it. The less gum the better for cheese making. Manufacturing cream is much cheaper and made with more gum in it.  Often but not always manufacturing cream is sold to restaurants and  used to prepare creamy sauces because it doesn’t break from all the gum in it. After the fact I am guessing that is why this boxed cream had a good shelf life.

I know the cheese I made isn’t real feta but it taste just like fresh made feta so I’m calling it FORKING  FETA even though it’s faux-feta.

FYI- Feta cheese is usually made from sheep’s milk and may contain up to 30% goat’s milk to be technical. There are also guidelines for measuring moisture content.

Well any way at home I had some leftover won ton skins, fresh dill and lemon.

So I laid out some won ton skins and filled a disposable pastry bag half way with the cheese mixture and twist the end.

Squirt out some cheese on each won ton skin

Top with a little fresh dill and a few caraway seeds to make the flavors POP!

Just wet the won ton ends with water and fold.

Squeeze out air and flatten filling

Boil in salted water a minute or two or until they float.

Top with a sprinkle of extra virgin olive oil, lemon zest, fresh ground sea salt and fresh ground black pepper and garnish with a small amount of fresh dill and SERVE RIGHT AWAY!

Now you have a masterpiece too! Well something that taste like a masterpiece anyway…..The raviolis come out with such a great flavors and that really perfect light as air ravioli texture. The won ton skins are so perfectly thin that you can only get by rollers from a machine without spending $200. for a KitchenAid roller attachment (to make your own). The cheese inside just sort of melts, kind of becomes the sauce for the ravioli in your mouth and is so umptiously good. Every thing together is  so delicious. The caraway seeds add something special that makes the flavors pop. My husband tasted them and screamed, “THESE ARE FORKING GREAT!” but he really used the real “F” word this time.

This is something you might want to make either with your own fresh cheese or with fresh made creamy feta cheese. I note that store purchased feta will not taste good with this recipe.

Your Welcome!