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Slipcote Cheese

Cheeses
Midlands

Unripened, very soft, white cheese formed in a small mould, or moulded in leaves. Once commonplace, we know of only one producer, High Weald Dairy in West Sussex. There are several receipts in Digby 1669. The 1653 cookbook 'A True Gentlewomans Delight' very wisely suggests that, "if you find any mouse turd wipe it off, the Cheese will come to his eating in eight or nine dayes." (Gent.Delight 1653)


Image: www.highwealddairy.co.uk (2022)



Original Receipt in 'The Closet Of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight, Opened ' (Digby 1669)

SLIPP-COAT CHEESE
Take three quarts of the last of the stroakings of as many Cows as you have; keep it covered, that it may continue warm; put to it a skimming dishful of Spring-water; then put in two spoonfuls of Runnet, so let it stand until it be hard come: when it is hard come, set your fat on the bottome of a hair-sieve, take it up by degrees, but break it not; when you have laid it all in the fat, take a fine cloth, and lay it over the Cheese, and work it in about the sides, with the back of a Knife; then lay a board on it, for half an hour: after half an hour, set on the board an half pound stone, so let it stand two hours; then turn it on that board, and let the cloth be both under and over it, then pour it into the fat again; Then lay a pound and half weight on it; Two hours after turn it again on a dry cloth, and salt it, then set on it two pound weight, and let it stand until the next morning. Then turn it out of the Cheese-fat, on a dry board, and so keep it with turning on dry boards three days. In case it run abroad, you must set it up with wedges; when it begins to stiffen, lay green grass or rushes upon it: when it is stiff enough, let rushes be laid both under and over it. If this Cheese be rightly made, and the weather good to dry it, it will be ready in eight days: but in case it doth not dry well, you must lay it on linnen-cloth, and woollen upon it, to hasten the ripening of it.




Original Receipt in 'English Housewifry' by Elizabeth Moxon, 1764 (Moxon 1764)

194 To make a slipcoat Cheese
Take five quarts of new milk a quart cream and a quart of water boil your water then put your cream to it when milk is new milk warm put in your erning take your curd into the strainer break it as little as you can and let it drain then put it your vat press it by degrees and lay it in grass






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