Discover the fresh cheese and yogurt cream recipe to accompany a wide range of dishes: read LifeGate's tips on how to make a yogurt cheese cream at home, perfect for filling cakes.
The yogurt cream is one of the fundamental preparations and most widespread in patisserie, as well as one of the lightest and least calorific, since only a very small number of ingredients are needed to make it (and with no added eggs) and its caloric content is more modest compared, for example, to other preparations such as crema pasticciera.
Moreover, thanks to its lightness, the fresh cheese and yogurt cream is extremely versatile, and its delicate flavour makes it suitable for both sweet and savoury cake preparations.
Below we propose a recipe for a light fresh cheese and yogurt cream using just two ingredients: low-fat yogurt and sea salt.
for 1–2 cups of cheese cream
To make the yogurt cream for filling cakes, begin by dampening and wringing out a cotton kitchen cloth (or a piece of muslin), which must be perfectly clean and odour-free. Spread the damp cloth inside a bowl, letting the edges hang over the outside. Mix the yogurt with the salt and pour it into the cloth; gather the corners to form a bundle, tie it with a piece of string, gently lift it and hang it so that it remains suspended above the bowl.
The yogurt whey will immediately begin to drip into the bowl. Leave the yogurt suspended for 6–10 hours; the longer you leave it, the more compact and firm the fresh cheese and yogurt cream becomes. Set the whey aside (it can be drunk as it is, mixed with fruit juice, or used to prepare soups, broths or doughs), place the bundle with the yogurt cream in the bowl, open the cloth and remove the cheese cream by scraping it off the fabric with the help of a spoon.
Store the fresh cheese and yogurt cream in the refrigerator, in an airtight container; it keeps longer if you cover the surface with a drizzle of oil. The yogurt cream prepared in this way is also ideal for filling cakes, both sweet and savoury.
It can also be made with whole-milk yogurt, or with a mixture of low-fat and whole-milk yogurt.
It is a fresh cheese of the "quark" type, with a fresh and delicate flavour, suitable for all savoury or sweet preparations. It can be flavoured with pepper, chilli, aromatic herbs and used to make canapés; if left "neutral" it perfectly replaces sour cream (for dressing soups, broths, pasta, grains, fish, vegetables and so on), but with a truly minimal fat content.
Its flavour will be enhanced in its variant as a spoon dessert by adding fresh strawberries, berries or seasonal fruit, but the yogurt cheese cream is perfect for making a classic cheesecake in a "lighter" version, as well as for filling other variants: ideal for filling a margherita cake, a ring cake or a simple yogurt cake, so as to bring out its flavour.