Homemade Quark / German Quark

Hi, here is my recipe for homemade Quark

This recipe is for about 1 kg (approx. 2 lbs) Quark

Ingredients

4 liters (about 4.2 quarts) milk 2%
240 ml (9.1 oz) cultured buttermilk

cheesecloth



To make homemade quark you will need 2 days. But the actual work time is approx. 10 minutes. The texture of the quark depends on how long you drain the quark. The quark is getting dryer the longer it drains. You can make the quark smooth again with whey or milk. It is important that all utensils are very clean. Pour the milk (2%) in a big plastic bowl (you can also use whole milk). Add 240ml/9.1oz cultured buttermilk and stir well. Cover the milk mixture with a lid and let stand at room temperature (about 22C / 72F) for 48 hours. After that time you got "Dickmilch", soured milk. It is recommended to use a bowl with a lid!
After 48 hours cover a baking tray with a dishtowel, (in the middle rung of your oven) and place the bowl (with lid!) on the tray. Set the oven temperature to 30 -35 C / 86 – 95 F and heat the soured milk mixture for 90 – 120 minutes. Now you can see that the whey splits from the quark. The whey is yellowish-green colored. Put the cheesecloth in a strainer and the strainer in a bowl. Pour in the quark, tie the cheesecloth and hang up the quark in a cool place to drain. Keep the whey for a healthy drink. It’s good for the intestinal flora. You can keep the quark and whey for approx. 5-7 days in the refrigerator. It depends on how cool the room temperature was when the quark was drained.

Use the Quark e.g. for German Style Cheesecake, Dips, Tzaziki, Spreads, enjoy with fruit, use for baking e.g. "Quark-Öl-Teig" / it's a special kind of dough, etc.

Enjoy!

Iris

This looks authenic!! What a great recipe. Are you German?

Hi velochic,

thanks, yes I'm German, located in Florida
And the output is real authentic german quark.

Iris

Quark - Yoghurt

Hi, This sounds a little like my Aunt Sylvia's yoghurt recipe. I haven't ever heard of quark, but it sounds good.

Is there a lot of difference between yoghurt and quark?

Sandyj

p.s., I'll look for her recipe & post it later.

Hi Sandyj

yes I know quark is not very common in the us. And yes there is a difference between quark and yogurt.

Quark is kind a cream cheese/ farmers cheese. Quark is the pre-stage for making hard cheese. Quark needs to rest in a cheesecloth for several hours so the whey can drip off and the desired consistency is reached.

Yogurt is a soured milk product. You have to add different kinds of lactobacillus. If you like to make your own yogurt the easiest way to add the lactobacillus is to use store bought yogurt as a starter. Yogurt is much softer than quark. And the whey is not detracted.

Iris

Ahaaaaaa.....

You know, Florida, I'm American and I use Quark a lot for places I would use cottage cheese. What other ideas can you give me for using quark. I used to put it my lasagne, but the ricotta in Germany is soooooo amazing (Lucia brand) that I've gotten out of the habit of using quark. Danke!

Hi Velo,
just saw that your location is Germany Right now I'm also in Germany (near Nürnberg).

Oh ja the Lucia brand is excellent....I love all the stuff from Lucia particularly the fresh mozzarella...hmmmm

Well you can use quark for baking, (for the dough and for fillings), for desserts ... I like to make diffrent kinds of Tiramisu with quark and fruits, it's not that heavy than the italian mascarpone cheese. Serve it as a dip, dressed with fresh herbs and salt and pepper for potatoes (e.g. "Pellkartoffeln mit Quark"), as a spread on fresh farmers bread etc.
You can also use it as a filling for appetizers etc..... there are a lot of recipes for quark.
Here is a link, it's a German site, but they also have great pictures with every recipe.....
This is the link to the quark recipes
http://www.marions-kochbuch.de/index/0102.htm

And heres the sites HP
http://www.marions-kochbuch.de/index.html

I know Marion and her recipes are guaranteed to work.

have a nice day.....and TGIF
bitte, gern geschehen!

Iris

Hi,

you got it, Im not german but I even make my own Frühlings Quark by adding herbs and Fondor. Yummy Yummy
susi

bald können wir das Forum auf deutsch weitermachen ;o)



okay... back to english............. ;o)

here at "Rezepte" you find a great variation of german recipes founded and tried out by farming women.... *yumm*

@ cara

Hi Iris, thanks for that great recipe, this summer we went to the northen part of Italy, where most of its residents are german speaking folks. They had this wonderful local product (among many others) "Krauterkwark", the freshly produced homemade quark was sprinkled with fresh herbs and we were just wondering how we could get this lovely stuff back in rome... now we know how to make it ourselves!!danke and tcheuss!!
Licia

Licia, bitte gern geschehen (= you are very welcome)


Iris