For 6 people): 1/2 l milk, 180 g sugar, 2 eggs, 6 egg yolks, 1 vanilla pod (2 cl brown rum if desired). 6 ramekins of metal, porcelain or earthenware.
Take 6 tbsp of the sugar and bring to the boil in a thick-bottomed saucepan with 3 tbsp of water, not too dark to caramelise. Pour it into the bottoms of the ramekins (preheated in the oven). Bring the milk to the boil with the split vanilla pod. Whisk in the eggs and egg yolks and gradually add the sugar. Pour in the hot milk without the scraped vanilla bean, stirring not too vigorously so that foam does not form. If necessary, perfume with the rum. Fill the ramekins with the egg milk and then cook it in the oven in a bain-marie at 175 degrees for about 45 minutes. The crème is done when a knife inserted into it comes out clean. Let cool and loosen the edges with a pointed knife before inverting.
With Waldemar Thomas at the Hüttenthaler Dairy.
The most similar to mother's milk may be donkey milk, but it is not available for purchase. In contrast, almost 90% of the milk consumed by humans comes from cows, with goat's milk taking second place.
These two types are then also processed by Britta and Kurt Kohlhage in their Hüttenthal dairy, which was founded in 1900 by grandfather Wilhelm. Every day, 20 fresh Odenwald farmers from the surrounding area deliver their milk to Mossautal, where it is refined into a range of interesting products. The family business was only able to survive, especially in the years of the great dairy boom in the 60s, by focusing on niche products.
With this, business economist Britta Kohlhage does not want to say that it is easy today. Although 15,000 litres of fresh cow's milk are processed daily, and 1000 litres of goat's milk every two days, this quantity is by no means large in comparison with the competition from dairy companies. Nevertheless, the Kohlhages are not badly represented with their products in the region and beyond.
In the first place is the "Odenwälder Frühstückskäse", which is protected as a speciality throughout Europe. It is, differently than the Handkäs` existing from sour milk, a rennet cheese and namely of the type of the wine and Münster cheese, a so-called "Rotschmierkäse" because of his outside coloring. And its production does not require little work: The milk must be heated, soured and rennet added; the curdled milk, the curd skimmed off into moulds, must be carefully watched (so that it does not become too firm); the young, still white cheese wheels are frequently turned over, bathed in salt water; They spend their time in the ripening room, have to be brushed with salt water every day, from old to young, so that the bacteria are transferred and cause the cheeses to redden more and more. As a result, Kurt Kohlhage, a qualified agricultural engineer specialising in dairy farming, is able to present a strong, aromatic, but also uniquely creamy cheese which, true to its name, cuts a fine figure on the tables, even the finer ones. A number of self-respecting inns offer it as a snack; several, mostly smaller shops and market traders carry "Odenwälder Frühstückskäse" in their assortment. All purchasing sources can be found on the homepage.
The Hüttenthalers also produce a goat cheese and a semi-hard cheese of this type. You can taste them in the "Milchgarten" and buy them in the dairy shop. Along with fluffy layered cheese and quark, gently processed, non-homogenized cream; fresh, lightly soured butter. And milk, of course, which, from cow or goat, flows loosely from the dispenser. You simply drink it, whereby sceptics can convince themselves that goat's milk tastes really sweet - or prepare a crème caramel from it, for example. Almost everyone in Spain has eaten it with relish and wondered how to make it, the "Flan".
Dairy and Cheese Factory Hüttenthal
Britta and Kurt Kohlhage
Dairy Way 1
64756 Mossautal-Hüttenthal (Odenwald)
Telephone: 06062-2665-0
Fax: 266526
Internet: http:/www.molkerei-huettenthal.de
Opening hours: Direct sales: Mon-Fri 8am-5pm, Sat 8am-12pm
Guided tours by appointment
from Waldemar Thomas