Skip to main content
Support

Browse by category

All categories
Home

Cheese from Italy, Veneto

Formaggio Tosellatosella

Raw evening milk is skimmed by letting the cream rise overnight, warmed and mixed with the whole morning milk, then set with powdered calf rennet in 15–30 minutes. The curd is cut to rice-grain size, heated to 38 °C and stirred until it holds together; part of it is set aside, drained in rectangular moulds and sold unsalted, wrapped in oiled paper. It is a rennet-set fresh curd with no ripening, so it is barely fermented.

Fully documentedCheese15 min – 30 minTraditional food product (PAT, Veneto)Family: Uncooked or semi-cooked pressed cheese family (tomme, Saint-Nectaire, Reblochon, Morbier, Raclette)

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedTaken from the batch of curd for the pasture's aged cheese; the sheets give no doses or sizes.
Raw cow milk from the summer pastureEvening milk skimmed by creaming overnight, mixed with whole morning milk[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Calf rennet, mostly powdered and dissolved in a little milk or waterLess often liquid or paste rennet[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]

Total time across the recorded steps: 15 min – 30 min

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Cream rises from the evening milk overnight and is skimmed off for butter

Step 1 of 5
Skim the evening milk by creaming
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacillus
Pediococcus
Lactococcus
Enterococcus

The evening milk is filtered and left overnight in steel tanks; in the morning the risen cream is taken off for butter.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Raw evening milk is skimmed by letting the cream rise overnight, warmed and mixed with the whole morning milk, then set with powdered calf rennet in 15–30 minutes. The curd is cut to rice-grain size, heated to 38 °C and stirred until it holds together; part of it is set aside, drained in rectangular moulds and sold unsalted, wrapped in oiled paper. It is a rennet-set fresh curd with no ripening, so it is barely fermented. Made in 5 steps over 15 min – 30 min. The longest step, mix with morning milk and add rennet, takes 15–30 min (Regione Veneto) and runs at 30 °C (Regione Veneto). Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, Lactococcus and Enterococcus, named as the most abundant genera of endogenous milk flora in 2-month-ripened raw-milk cheeses from Trentino malghe does most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main step15–30 minReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Mix with morning milk and add rennet
Temperature30 °CReported[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]Mix with morning milk and add rennet

What makes this one different

A share of the curd taken from the summer-pasture cheese make before salting, for the herders' own table. It is close to the Belluno Schiz and the Trentino Tosèla.

Rind
None; soft white surface marked by the moulds
Size
Variable; block or cylinder
Season
Summer pasture season, sold at the huts

Related ferments

Safety

Made from raw milk and sold at once without salt; it is meant to be cooked and eaten within a few days.

Hazards the sources name: Coagulase-positive staphylococci in curd, reaching almost 5 log CFU/g in the two Trentino malghe that used no starter (a related semi-cooked malga cheese); Listeria monocytogenes and Salmonella were not found there; Coagulase-positive staphylococci, E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes and Shiga-toxin-producing E. coli, monitored in raw-milk dairy products of north-eastern Italian alpine dairies in general (not this cheese); staphylococci and E. coli were the ones most often over regulatory limits.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The regional atlas says herders kept back a little curd from the cheese they sold, to eat on the pasture, and that the summer-pasture huts of Vicenza still make it by long-fixed rules.

Starter
The sources we found do not say how its fermentation begins.
  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Veneto, Atlante dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali del Veneto, sheet 'Formaggio tosella', p. 165 (copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (national organisation of cheese tasters), technical sheet 'Formaggio Tosella'web
  3. [lucchini2018] Lucchini R, Cardazzo B, Carraro L, et al. 2018, Contribution of natural milk culture to microbiota, safety and hygiene of raw milk cheese produced in alpine malga, Italian Journal of Food Safety 7(1), a study of semi-cooked raw-milk malga cheeses in Trentinopaper
  4. [prandi2026] Prandi I, Pezzuto A, Massaro A, et al. 2026, A Fourteen-Year Surveillance Study on the Microbiological Status of Raw Milk Dairy Products from Alpine Dairies in Northeastern Italy, Foods 15(9):1479 (abstract)paper