Louise Talbot’s love of food and home cooking started young, having grown up on her family’s fourth-generation farm in South Canterbury, New Zealand. She enjoyed visits to her grandparent’s farm nearby, where she would play in Grandad Alexander’s milking parlour.

From the moment Louise took a class with a cheesemaker over 20 years ago, she was hooked. She went on to study commercial cheese production to hone her skills and learn the all-important theory. Then in 2012, Cutting the Curd was born.

Travelling the country from her home near Blandford Forum, she teaches beginners how to make halloumi, mozzarella, mascarpone and butter and more advanced students to make camembert and feta. She also teaches cheddar, cream cheese, Edam, Cambozola and Stilton, among other things, and is currently working on a programme of flavoured cheeses. Louise says:

“I derive so much pleasure from sharing my love of cheese and seeing my students’ enthusiasm also.”

 Louise is a trained teacher, member of the Specialist Cheese Makers Association and guest tutor at many cookery schools, including Waitrose, Leith’s School of Food and Wine and Divertimenti. She is a Training Partner for the Academy of Cheese and a judge of the Cheese Awards.

Zoom learning

Lockdown forced Louise to take her teaching online. Despite having never heard of Zoom before, her classes have proved so popular that she will probably keep an online element even after things return to normal. I joined Louise and a small group on Zoom for a mascarpone and halloumi workshop - one of her beginner classes.

It is really well organised and you have the ingredients and equipment list well ahead of time. She posts some bits and pieces you need - tartaric acid, vegetarian rennet, cheesecloth, calcium chloride and a mould. There was quite a lot of preparation on the morning in terms of getting all the equipment together and sterilised, but then I was all ready to give the class my full attention.

The class was a good mix of practical and theory, and Louise had plenty of cheesy facts to keep us entertained along the way (did you know that people are making cheese from donkey milk, pigs milk and even human breast milk? No, me neither). She also shared some lovely recipes and ideas of what to do with our cheeses.

My babies!

Making mascarpone was ridiculously simple, yet the finished product was so much better than what you buy in the shops. Rich, creamy, decadent and great with sweet or savoury dishes.

There were many more stages to making halloumi, and we even had to finish it off on our own two hours after the class finished. I found that vaguely terrifying, although it was a massive sense of achievement when my cheese did what it was supposed to. The best part was recooking the slices in heated whey (this firms up the texture and gives it its trademark squeakiness). When they are done, they bob up to the surface. I still wasn’t confident that I’d done everything correctly, so when they raised their little heads in the pan, I whooped with joy!

The fun of making these cheeses is that you can eat them the same day - there’s no need to mature. The halloumi can be frozen in slices, so you always have a pan-ready stash. (Although I must admit, not much of my first batch made it to the freezer).

The halloumi was deliciously creamy and mild. Mine wasn’t as squeaky as the shop-bought stuff, but still a delightful texture. I think I might have gone a bit too light on the salt, so cooked it with a liberal grind of chilli salt and it was wonderful.

I was as proud of making cheese as I was of making two human babies. I had no idea that it was something you could do at home, with no need for specialist equipment (well, maybe just a couple of inexpensive bits). I’m excited to make both of these again, and perhaps try my hand at a more advanced cheese next time. And I don’t think I could find a more experienced (and patient!) teacher than Louise at Cutting the Curd. Highly recommended.