The Dancing Goat Creamery – TiKA and Vanilla Fudge

The Dancing Goat Creamery was founded in 2013 and has grown into a significant portion of CCF’s Model Farm and tourism programing. In September, CCF was fortunate to gain a new creamery building from the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TiKA). Creamery staff were on hand for a special training from a specialist food engineer, learning yogurt making and a new variety of salted cheese!

The creamery, using milk from the goats bred and raised at CCF’s Model Farm, makes products ranging from feta cheese to many flavors of ice cream and fudge. Fransina Simson, the Creamery/Cafe Assistant, provided me a behind-the-scenes look at a normal day in the creamery. I was treated to a demonstration on how to make vanilla fudge, vanilla fudge ice cream, and ricotta cheese.

Fransina began by making the delicious vanilla fudge. After combining all of the ingredients, she placed them on the stovetop in a large pot and occasionally stirred until the mixture became thick. This took great patience, as the mixture takes a long time to become thick enough to turn into fudge. Once it had finally thickened, she poured it onto a tray and set it out to harden. After the fudge became firm enough, she cut it into perfect slices, which would soon be bagged up and sold at the gift shop and café.

Now that the fudge was complete, it was time to begin the most tedious of the foods: ice cream. After putting some goat milk in a pot, Fransina added in some of the ingredients and placed the pot on the stove. While this mixture warmed up, she mixed together egg yolk and vanilla and added this in. Once it had enough time on the stove, she removed the pot and poured the blend into a bucket to cool. This took quite some time as it had been on the stove for a while and was very hot.

While she waited for the ice cream mixture to cool, Fransina began to prepare the last food of the day: ricotta cheese. She says that ricotta cheese is the easiest to make, as it is a quick and simple process. After putting milk into two large pots, she set the pots on the stove to warm to a boil. Once the milk was boiling, Fransina added vinegar and then let the pots sit, giving the milk time to separate into ricotta cheese. She then used a strainer to scoop out of the prepared cheese, leaving a yellow-looking mixture in the pots. According to Fransina, this mixture would not go to waste. It has several uses, including hair care, gardening, and drinking for stronger muscles.

Now that the cheese was ready, the ice cream mixture had cooled enough to begin the final preparations. From here it was simple; Fransina put the mixture into the ice cream machine and waited patiently. Once the ice cream was nearly ready, she added in bits of her delicious fudge, making a vanilla fudge-flavored ice cream. I tasted each food, everything was delicious, but nothing compares to the delicious meals the Cheetah Café makes using the creamery’s creations. Come pay CCF a visit and try it yourself!