Women Cheesemakers of Wisconsin: Marieke's Gouda Love.

After sharing a drink or two with my friends at the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board at the last American Cheese Society Conference, we decided to collaborate on a project (this is how most things get done at ACS). I’d get to pitch a topic. My pick? The female cheesemakers of Wisconsin. I’d tell the stories of my choice of four of my favorite women cheesemakers in a series of blog posts. I loved interviewing these ladies, what they're doing, and thank them for their time. This is the second of the series, focusing on Marieke Penterman of Holland's Family Cheese. There are three things that immediately stand out about gouda cheesemaker Marieke Penterman of Hollands Family Cheese. First, her passion for milk and cheese. Second, her devotion to her family. Third, that she’s suuuper nice- she smiled and waved hello to approximately fifty-three people during our interview at the American Cheese Society conference. And fourth, she might consider mixing up her dance moves when accepting cheese awards in the future.

Said Marieke, “I don’t want people to get bored.”

I laughed. Nine years after launching her cheesemaking career and over a hundred awards later, she’s in no danger of disenchanting. Still, I suggested salsa.

Marieke grew up on a farm in Holland with a herd of fifty cows and loved working with the animals. Though she’s always seemed destined for cheese, when she first launched her dairy in 2005, she just wanted to milk cows. But within months of experiencing the ebb and flow of fluid milk prices and urging from her mother, she decided to sign up for cheesemaking classes. They worked out. And with influences like Uplands Cheese and Joe Widmer of Widmer’s Cheese down the road, Marieke says, there was plenty of inspiration nearby.

Nine years later, Marieke still lights up when talking about milk’s “fascinating” transformation in the make room.

“I like to feel the curd, how vulnerable it is, how soft,” she says, “milk is amazing- delicious, nutritious….” She says, gazing into the distance as she goes on to list all the things milk can become. Ice cream, fromage blanc, butter, yogurt, cream, … (and about five other products I didn’t write fast enough to catch).

Holland’s Family Cheese might start making some of her beloved milk incarnations, since they opened a new dairy, shop, and visitor center a year ago that has more space. First though, Marieke’s priority is teaching more people about cheesemaking, since she says, “we can’t blame people for don’t understanding if we don’t give them the opportunity.”

Tours in the new dairy lead visitors throughout all steps of the process from making and aging, to packing and selling. The creamery also has windows so guests can watch the cheesemakers add rennet, cut curds, and press wheels.

But education at Holland’s Cheese doesn’t stop with the visitors. Among Marieke’s top priorities are involving her five children in the life of the creamery. If guests look carefully, they might catch a glimpse of one of Marieke’s children gently practicing folding cheese paper over a young gouda wedge between doodling with Crayons (like I did when visiting for my book). Or, spot the desks Marieke put next to the creamery so her children could do their homework. More than one of her children sat in their strollers as babies while watching her and her husband make cheese.

Wisconsin female cheesemakers I interviewed for this series with young children cited Marieke’s incorporating her children into her dairy life in addition to her good business sense as inspirational. Seems like it goes both ways.

“The young and new cheesemakers inspire me,” Marieke says, “They make me want to do better.”

According to Marieke, Master Cheesemaker Pam Hodgson of Satori cheese has been nudging her to start the classes to become a Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker, which would make her the third woman to earn the honor after Pam. If her shining eyes were telling, I don't think she'd take much more nudging to make the move in a year or three down the road.

 Full disclosure, the WMMB sponsored my project. Written only about cheesemakers whose wheels I love, these posts are edited only by me.

Apple Gouda Pastry Puff Cheese Recipe

 

The inspiration for this apple gouda dessert cheese recipe came to me when I looked outside to see the sun shining. While the rest of the country is freezing, our northern Californian trees are full of leaves, the magnolias and tulip trees are blooming, and drivers created a major rush hour-style traffic jam this weekend trying to get to the beach. Some flock to wine shops to buy rosé, others whisper to new breaking buds, "it's too soon, it's too soon," and fear what has been titled a Mega-drought will empty our reservoirs to lows lower than Paris Hilton's jeans in the nineties.

Right now I'm situated a little in-between enjoyment and feeling the need to gather some friends, bake some cookies, and hold an intervention for Weather. We think you've been too dry, too long here, I'll say. It's not just hard on you, it's hard on the farmers too. And the polar vortex? Don't you think you could be a little more thoughtful?

I'm also realizing that my heart is not ready to give up on the culinary, warming, glories of winter. Maybe it's because I was traveling so much through October and November and didn't get to cook much, or maybe it's because our winter has been so short , but as I see the snowy photos on my Instagram feed, all I am feeling like doing is heating up my oven. So that's what I'm doing.

In honor those around the country battling furiously cold blizzards, I bring you a cheese dessert to warm your kitchens. Or your hearts if your kitchens don't  need warming. Meet the gouda apple pastry puff. The gouda acts like a firm, salty caramel when baked with lightly tart apples, creating a dessert reminiscent of fleur de del caramels. Pair that to fruit and flaky puff pastry and you've got a complete dessert that would make any mother proud.

I'll tell you a little secret. It's also as equally lovely with Lancashire or clothbound cheddars. If you want to read more about gouda, click here.

Gouda Apple Pastry Puffs

Serves four

2 medium-sized apples, peeled and cored 1 1/2 teaspoon salted butter 2 teaspoon granulated white sugar 1 teaspoon brown sugar 1 teaspoon turbinado sugar or granulated white sugar 1/4 teaspoon red wine vinegar 8 ounces puff pastry 1 egg, beaten 2 ounces L'Amuse Gouda, thinly sliced and lightly chopped

In a small saucepan, place the apples, butter, 2 teaspoons white sugar, and 1 teaspoon brown sugar over medium-low heat. Once the butter is melted, continue to cook the apples for six to eight more minutes, until they start to soften Add the vinegar, stir, and take off the heat. Pour the apples over a salad plate and set aside to cool.

While the apples are cooling, tend to the pastry. Lightly flour a clean, dry surface. Lay the pastry over the surface and lightly dust with flour. Roll out the dough evenly so it is about two-thirds to three quarters of it's original thickness. Cut once horizontally and once up and down so you have four squares that are roughly equally sized. Trace a circle that extends to the sides of the squares of each of the quadrants.

Once the apples are cool, divide evenly and distribute among the centers of each square, leaving an inch or so around the edge. Divide the gouda among the tarts, tucking into the apples. Pull the pastry towards the center of the circle, pinching off the dough to form an open, rippled pouch. Don't try to make too perfect- these are rustic.

With a pastry brush, lightly brush the beaten egg over the tarts, being careful to cover all of the visible dough. Focusing on the dough, sprinkle the turbinado sugar over the top of the tarts. Transfer to a plate and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 375.

Place the tarts on a lined baking sheet. Bake for ten minutes, then rotate the pan so the front is now towards the bake. Bake for ten more minutes. They are ready when the tarts are golden-brown and the dough is cooked through. Set aside to cool (they will deflate a healthy bit). Serve lightly warm or at room tempera

Kaasboerderij Captein Gouda: Or, Dutch Suitcase Cheese

People bring back cheese for me from other countries in their suitcase.

This is awesome for two reasons. First, it means that they are thinking of me when doing fun, wonderful things, like eating cheese and traveling. While at UC Berkeley, one of the things I studied during my cultural anthropology tenure was changing funerary rites. Because of this I can tell you first hand that having people say they thought of you while traveling or enjoying cheese can be more enjoyable than hearing you came to mind when they said goodbye to their Aunt Tilly, or, when they read the latest article about caskets being sold at Costco. This is good for my ego.

Second, it is awesome because once the cheese is released from their suitcase, I get to eat it. Even cooler, most queso, fromage, kaas that is brought back for me tends to be from traveler’s cheesemaker friends or family. This means if they hadn’t brought it back, I might have never have had a chance to try it. Or write about it.

Such is the story with this Kaasboerderij Captein Creamery gouda, brought back for me by a lovely lady named Lidewey who visited her friend’s farm and creamery.

Made from the milk of cows on her friend’s farm in Zoeterwoude, Holland, this gouda is boerenkaas.

In order to be labeled boerenkaas, the cows that are producing the milk for the gouda have to be grazing on grass. Both because winters are so harsh in Holland so the animals are kept indoors, and because boerenkaas producers believe that cheese made with the milk of animals eating the greenest, tastiest grass is the best, boerenkaas is only made in spring summer - for quality’s sake.

This Kaasboerderij Captein gouda is also Boeren-Goudse Oplegkaas, meaning that it’s been aged from two to four years. That’s when the gouda crunch comes in. As a cheese ages, lactose turns to lactic acid, and amino acid protein starts to crystallize. The older it gets, the more crystallization can happen. The crystals aren’t sweet, but because the cheese itself gets more flavorful and often sweeter with age, the crystals give the perception of sweetness.

This particular aged gouda that Lideway brought back is made by the Kaasboerderij Captein Creamery in Zoeterwoude, Gouda, Holland. The family has been maintaining their area of grassland in Zoeterwoude, on the edge of an area known as the "Green Heart" of Holland, for many generations.

As is traditional with goudas of this style, the women in the family craft this cheese. If it's a day when the animals are out grazing, one can also find the mother and daughter turning the milk from their "Fries Roodbont vee" (Friesian red-and-white cows) into curds that will later be pressed into their Boeren-Goudse Oplegkaas. After the curds have been pressed into traditional wooden molds lined with linen, and the wheels have been aged for a couple years, a cheese is revealed that tastes like intense cultured butter made in summer, grass, a little meaty, and surprisingly even though very aged, still rich and not grainy or crumbly.

Though the family's pride, and the favorite cheese of chefs in Holland is this style of wheel, they also make young cheeses too- six week-old little freshies that are consumed waaaay before they'd have a chance to land on U.S. shores.

And I have no idea where to tell you all to find this cheese in the U.S.. In Holland you can find it at Michelin-starred restaurants. Here, you can find it… in my fridge. At least this week. As of yet it’s not available for purchase. But maybe, just maybe, if we cross our fingers, someone will import it. Once that happens, you'll have have to go buy some dark bread, smother it with sweet butter, and, as Lidewey tells me the Dutch do, so I should also be doing, have it for breakfast. Suitcase optional.

Gouda Ice Cream: What Not to Do

Inspired months ago by titillating 140-character cheese and dessert discussions on twitter, Pastry Chef Plinio Sandalio of Houston's Textile restaurant and I decided to collaborate on a gouda ice cream post. That is, he volunteered to supply a recipe and I would make it to the best of my dessert abilities.

Because cheese ice cream recipes on the net had been whispering sweet nothings to me for months, when I heard that I could have one of Plinio's creations in my own  little, cheese-ripened hands, I said yes. Instantly.

Without further ado, here is a definitive list about what not to do when an outstanding pastry chef gifts you with the keys to a gouda ice cream palace, then, Plino's five-star recipe.

Gouda Ice Cream: What  Not to Do

1. Don't worry about that the last time you used your ice cream maker, you weren't sure if it was working properly. It was your grandmother's. Of course it works.

2. Forget that the pastry chef told you he used a 3 yr old gouda and buy a 4 yr old cow's milk gouda instead. Oops. A little intense. And don't think about using a goat's milk gouda, which would have lent a tangy, lively character to the sweet ice cream. Who needs a pesky flavor layer?

3. Depend upon your old strainer to extract the salty, caramelly gouda chunks from the custard base. Screw using a restaurant-quality chinois, cheese cloth, or butter muslin fabric. Everyone loves a chunky cheese ice cream. Yes?

4. Ignore the directions on the ice cream maker to freeze the results for at least an hour before consuming. It's much more fun when the dessert melts before it arrives to your mouth. You gotta catch it dripping off the spoon that way, works off all that cream!

Gouda Ice Cream

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups milk

2 cups heavy cream

1/4 cup light corn syrup

1/2 tsp salt

pinch xanthan gum

12 oz aged gouda

Whisk all together in a large sauce pan and heat slowly over low heat. Do not boil. Continue cooking on low until the custard base is thick enough to lightly coat a wooden spoon. Remove from heat.

Blend mixture in a food processor or blender until very smooth. Strain through a fine chinois, or with a sieve lined with butter muslin to remove all chunks.

Chill completley.

Freeze according to ice cream maker's instructions.

Eat

* I didn't have time to play around with the recipe much, but because the flavor of aged gouda is so strong, all 12 oz isn't really needed. You might be able to get by with only 6 or eight ounces. Let me know!

* Please leave updates on this post if you try this or variations of the recipe. I'd love to know how things went!