Place the milk in a very large soup pot over a very low heat. Cook for 30-40 minutes, stirring intermittently, until it reaches 70C or is just simmering.

Pour in the vinegar and stir to combine. Quite quickly, the mixture should separate into fluffy white curd and an opaque yellow liquid – whey. The liquid should have no areas of milky white – it should all be opaque yellow. If it does, continue to cook until the curds and whey have fully separated.

Allow the mixture to sit and cool a little for about 10 minutes. Scoop a few cups of whey out and reserve them for the next steps.

Gently drain the whey off the curds using a nut milk bag or a fine meshed sieve. Be gentle in pouring out the whey as the pressure of dumping it all through a sieve might push some of your curds through the sieve and down the sink.

Allow the curds to continue draining off until they are a hand comfortable temperature. From here, apply gentle pressure to expel the excess liquid from the curds. I like to gently press down then pick up balls of curd and gently squeeze them with my hands.

This step is the only one that is mildly tricky because it’s hard to know how much water to expel. If in doubt, it is better to wring out too much liquid as we can add it back in in the next steps.

Transfer your drained curd to a tall glass jar if you are using an immersion blender (soup stick) or to your high-speed food processor. If you are using a processor without a steam valve, you’ll need the curds to be fully or mostly cool before blending.

Blend the cream cheese until it is smooth, glossy and velvety like room temperature cream cheese or sour cream. If your mixture is dry, crumbly or forms cubes as you blend (you’ll notice this if you use an immersion blender) add more whey, milk or cream into the mix until you reach the described consistency.

Decant the cream cheese into a glass container and salt according to your tastes. I find cream cheese for cheesecake needs a considerable amount of salt, whereas it needs less for bagels or sandwiches.

Keeps well in the fridge for up to a week.