Scottish Crowdie Cheese Making Kit

Package arrived slightly crushed but otherwise looked as expected.Bought as a present so as yet unable to comment on ease of use and final product.

Purchased as gift

This kit gives clear instructions, easy to follow. Good as a starter kit to learn the process then all the constituents can be sourced elsewhere. My problem was that the thermometer failed on second use so that the cheese over heated creating something more akin to halloumi. That is a lot of milk to waste.

Looks a great kit. Purchased for a Christmas present on November 1st and best before date was 10/10/25. Very disappointed.

I was keen to try this having never made cheese before. All you need is milk and a little time, as well as a few basic items of kitchen equipment to make the cheese in. It doesn’t take long to make and having watched a few videos online I realised the key is to get as much of the whey (liquid) part out to allow you to shape the cheese. Scooping the cheese out of the pan into the muslin with a slotted spoon is better than just pouring from the pan, and then squeezing the remaining out helps. Placing in the fridge to further dry and firm up also helps. The resulting cheese was less like cottage cheese, but the end taste is the same. It’s a soft cheese with a little sharpness, reminds me a lot of cottage cheese/ ricotta. You can coat the cheese in herbs or add to it with some experimentation, and the included booklet has some ideas how to use it. Overall it does seem expensive for what you get and while it makes several batches, it’s always going to be cheaper to buy the cheese made. But that takes the fun out of it and this is very much aimed as a gift, or if you just want to try making some cheese.

I'd not heard of Scottish Crowdie before but it's apparently Scotland's oldest type of cheese originating from the Highlands with links back to the Vikings and Picts. This attractively packaged kit from a UK business specialising in cheese making kits would make a perfect gift for cooks, foodies and Caledonophiles alike. The Crowdie you can make with this kit is vegetarian and recipes are included for both smooth and creamy as well as firm and crumbly versions. Is everything included? - Well, you'll need to supply the milk but there's even butter muslin and a food thermometer in the box and enough ingredients to enable 12 batches to be produced. A batch is 900g in weight - that's a lot of cheese. Plus the ingredients can be stored for at least 12 months so you don't need to make the lot in the space of a couple of weeks. An easy to follow instruction book and recipes are included. The cheese can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes making it more versatile than many other cheeses - another reason cooks will like it. But if you'd rather go for Crowdie-topped oatcakes with a glass of single malt whisky, sometimes the best approaches are the simplest ones...

I was a bit disappointed in this cheese making kit, which I requested largely because it was advertised as vegan. The youngest of my brothers has recently gone vegan and, spotting that this was listed as a vegan cheese, making kit I was thinking I could home make some cheese for when he comes to visit next - and then perhaps buy him a kit for Christmas. Unfortunately, the kit had been misdescribed. It’s vegetarian rather than vegan-friendly. The kit includes vegetarian-friendly rennet for making the cheese, but uses cow’s milk as its main ingredient. There’s no suggestion anywhere in the included recipe book that you can make a vegan alternative, or what milk to use as a substitute for cow juice. There are four recipes in the included booklet: a basic crowdie recipe using cows’ milk - with instructions soft and firm versions; an adaptation turning it into garlic and herb roulade; and a recipe for cranachan. I’m thinking that since I have sufficient ingredients for 12 batches, I might try a batch of this using plant based milk and see if I get anywhere - but it’s pretty misleading to describe something as vegan, when none of the recipes or recipe alternatives in the included booklet use plant-based milks. The kit actually seems decent enough - it includes most of the basic equipment needed, and is designed with recipes that can be repeated with separately bought ingredients once the kit ones have been exhausted - and is great for avoiding waste, with helpful suggestions as to how to make use of the by-product whey. Hopefully the description will be updated soon to reflect the fact that this is vegetarian, not vegan. As it is, I don’t feel that I can give this more than one star: wrongly claiming to be suitable for those on wholly plant-based diets, is a major inaccuracy.