LYNDALL Dykes has always been passionate about making her own food from scratch, and since establishing her business has shared her passion for cheesemaking with others.
The owner of The Cheesemaking Workshop, based at Coffs Harbour, first started “mucking around” with cheesemaking after buying her first book 42 years ago.
What was once a very time consuming method has certainly changed over the decades, Mrs Dykes said.
“About 12 years ago I started using freeze-dried lactic bacteria which took my cheesemaking to the next level,” she said.
“When I first started there was no internet, nobody to help, but when I came across these – they were reserved for the commercial environment – it made home cheesemaking so much easier.”
Mrs Dykes, with and her team, runs cheesemaking workshops seven days a week at Coffs Harbour, but also takes her work on the road, with previous workshops at Stanthorpe, Tamworth, Moree, Narrabri, Broken Hill and Bathurst.
“I think there’s a strong movement now, with people wanting to know what’s in the food they’re consuming, and making cheese is also really cost effective,” she said.
“One litre of milk will give me one camembert, and a litre of milk turned into yoghurt costs $1.50 to make, which is much less than what you’d pay from the supermarket.”
It’s also a very simple process, Mrs Dykes said.
”People amazed at how simple the process is.
“Cheese is basically milk then a starter culture, which puts bacteria into the milk, then the rennet’s role is to pull molecules together to set a curd.
“After that, it’s what you do with the milk that gives you different types of cheese.”
The signature workshop focuses on soft cheese. In six hours, participants learn how to make Camembert, feta, mascarpone, ricotta, yoghurt and quark, a cream cheese.
“We start with the same ingredients, but from that, we can have havarti in one vat and cheddar in another.
“We’ve taken cheesemaking and broken it down into something that’s so simple that it’s easier than baking a cake.”