Please find Terms & Conditions as well as our cancellation policy here. When signing up for this workshop you automatically agree to the Terms & Conditions. Please make sure to read them.
Cheesemaking is an Artform
Good cheese has become increasingly expensive, and making it yourself not only reduces cost but also gives you complete control over what goes into your food—and just as importantly, what stays out. When you make your own cheese, you reconnect with traditional food craft and the simple satisfaction of working with real, whole ingredients.
In this workshop we take a return-to-roots approach to cheesemaking. Instead of relying on industrial freeze-dried cultures and highly processed methods, we focus on traditional techniques used for centuries. You will learn how to cultivate and maintain your own live cheese cultures and work with fresh milk in its most natural form to create beautiful, nourishing dairy products at home.
This is practical, hands-on learning designed to give you confidence and independence in your own kitchen. The emphasis is on understanding the process, building skill, and developing a feel for working with live cultures rather than following rigid industrial systems.
What You Will Learn to Make
- How to grow and maintain your own mesophilic and thermophilic cheese cultures
- Traditional Mozzarella
- Fresh Crème fraîche (sour cream)
- Soft Cream Cheese (vaché-style, cow’s milk alternative to chèvre)
- Faisselle (traditional fresh curd cheese)
- Halloumi
- Probiotic yoghurt
What You Get
- Hands-on, practical skills and confidence in traditional cheesemaking
- A comprehensive workshop booklet covering all essential foundations plus full recipes for the dairy products covered
- A mesophilic and thermophilic cheese starter culture to take home and continue your cheesemaking journey
- A delicious, nourishing lunch featuring a cheese frittata, a selection of handcrafted cheeses for tasting, fresh garden salad, and homemade sourdough bread
A full, immersive day of learning, tasting, and hands-on experience in real food crafting.
Image above: 6 big Mozzarella balls made with 6 litres of milk. Value: $50 -70
Tutor: Cornelia Holten
MEd (Integrative Learning), Certificate in Organic Horticulture and Herbal Medicine
Cornelia Holten is a soil health educator, herbalist, and workshop facilitator with a deep passion for regenerative living, real food, and practical self-sufficiency. Her work centres around soil health, growing nutrient-dense food, herbal medicine, fermentation, and traditional food preparation methods that reconnect people with hands-on skills.
Her training includes a Certificate in Organic Horticulture, intensive studies with Dr. Elaine Ingham’s Soil Food Web School, an apprenticeship in herbal medicine at Valmai Becker’s Phytofarm, and training in Allan Savory’s Holistic Management. She has also completed Permaculture Design training with Geoff Lawton and hands-on cheesemaking training with natural cheesemaker David Asher. Living and working on a farm in Pigeon Bay further grounds her knowledge in daily practice and real-world application.
Cornelia’s Master of Education in Integrative Learning from Endicott College allows her to weave together diverse disciplines into clear, accessible, and engaging workshops that make complex topics easy to understand and enjoyable to learn.
Together with her husband Kai, she runs workshops on soil health, whole foods, fermentation, cheesemaking, bread baking, and regenerative gardening. Their teaching style is practical, down-to-earth, and focused on empowering people with real-life skills they can use immediately.
A strong curiosity and ongoing engagement with current scientific research continue to inform and deepen her work, ensuring her teaching remains both traditional in wisdom and current in understanding.
