Hoop cheese is a traditional cow’s milk cheese that was common in the southern United States from the early to mid 1900’s. It’s still available today, although it’s less common. It is a simple cheese made by separating the whey from the curds.
Maybe you can still find hoop cheese in some recipes, so let me introduce the two types of hoop cheese used in recipe and how to cook it.
Soft Hoop Cheese
Without salt, Soft Hoop Cheese is a crumbly white cheese that resembles baker’s cheese or dry-curd cottage cheese. It has a short storage life and is low in calcium and fat.
The whey was supposedly strained off the curds using cheesecloth that was tied over a hoop, according to the theory behind the name. The cheese could be used either fresh, like dry-curd cottage cheese, or pressed into a form and aged.
It is excellent for giving recipes a creamy texture without adding flavor or fat. It is firm enough to slice or crumble (with caution) and has a very bland flavor with only a slight tang.
Really, it isn’t produced anymore. Although it had been revived and was once again being sold in the United States, Friendship Dairy stopped making it in 2004.
Hard Hoop Cheese
In the South-East of the United States, hoop cheese is regarded as a hard cheese.
Large wheels of red or black wax-coated hard hoops cheese weigh about 20 pounds (9 kg). Most of it is medium to sharp “Hoop Cheddar Cheese” from Wisconsin.
It was once frequently found in country stores. A cutter made specifically for a wheel of cheese that size would hold the cheese. The employees at the store would cut you off a wedge of the desired size.
Cooking Tips
If the recipe calls for Hoop Cheese and you don’t know which one it means:
It’s the soft Hoop Cheese that’s meant if the recipe seems to imply that it’s a low-fat cheese or if it seems to give a measurement that would be simpler with a wet cheese. The hard, cheddar-like Hoop Cheese is what is meant if you are instructed to shred or grate the cheese in a recipe.
Substitutes
Cheddar is appropriate for hard hoop cheese. It’s possible that pressed dry cottage cheese would be the best alternative for soft hoop cheese. If you can’t find it, you can substitute regular cottage cheese or ricotta, but you’ll need to drain them well first and adjust the amount of other moisture in your recipe because those two cheeses have a lot more moisture than Soft Hoop Cheese did.
Conclusion
Hoop cheese is usually used to refer to either an American Hard Cheese or an American Soft Cheese. What exactly the hoop cheese in your recipe is is determined by the description, but you can use cottage cheese or ricotta to replace it.
Related Reading
FAQs
What Type of Cheese Is Hoop Cheese?
Hoop Cheese is made by draining the whey from cottage cheese and placing the cheese curds into a round mold – giving the cheese it’s hoop shape. It is then pressed out and together. Some Hoop Cheese for Sale is aged a bit to make it a bit more firm, but most of it is rather soft.
Why Is Hoop Cheese Called Hoop Cheese?
Their traditionally-made hoop cheese is created using cow’s milk, with the whey being drained completely then placed in round moulds called hoops. This is precisely where hoop cheese gets its name. Hoop cheese with a red or black wax coating has also been called ring cheese before too.
Is Hoop Cheese Healthy?
With few amounts of fat and carbohydrates, hoop cheese is the ultimate healthy cheese. It is a fine source of protein and contains rich quantities of sodium and calcium.
