The Cheese Blog
A Guide to Your Glam Holiday Cheese Plate
The holidays are the perfect time to deck out your plates with already bling-out cheese.
The holidays are a time when excess is not only accepted, it is celebrated.
Maybe it’s not surprising then that your holiday cheese plate begs for bling!
When creating your holiday cheese plate your first step is to decide between:
Decking out a modest cheese plate with all the fruit, nuts, preserves, Funyuns, and cool condiments and sides you can get your hands on. See my post on Rush Creek.
Or, embracing decadence to 11 and serve cheese with bling already included.
How to build a glam holiday cheese plate out of pre-adorned cheese.
Unlike when I was growing up and cheesemakers only “flavored” their cheese when their milk was sub-par, now there is an abundance of wheels with tasty things already included in them. Building a holiday cheese plate that sparkles out is easier than ever.
Here is how to do it.
Go for color! See that Roelli Red Rock above? It is a farmhouse cheddar doused with crazy amounts of annatto. So pretty. And though it’s damn good, even just its color will command a cheese plate. That said, if you put a bright and delicious cheese like that on the board, make sure you include other wheels that can bring it, too.
Like Alta Langa’s Il Canet. Does it look orange on the outside, too? It does! It is rubbed with annatto as well. But more importantly, because it is a washed rind, it has some strength and can hold its own. And it’s also a cute shape. Go bold with flavor, shape, and textures.
Try a gouda with stuff in it. My favorite American made one is by Marieke in Thorpe, Wisconsin, but you can find them all over the place, like the one in the third photo from Ballinrostig in Cork, Ireland. If you can’t find a gouda studded with stuff, just get one that’s at least one year-old. The aged ones look dreamy whittled into chunks on a cheese board.
Buy a winter cheese or a cheese inspired by the winter cheeses of the Alps. They’ll be wrapped in bark. I love Upland’s Rush Creek Reserve, Firefly Farm’s, and Jasper Hill’s wheels. They’re gorgeous. Her'e’s how to eat them with Funyuns.
Get ashy. Ash does lots of things for a cheese, but most importantly for holiday plates, it makes cheeses look pretty. Nettle Meadow’s Sappy Ewe (also has stuff in it!) is a great example, as are Vermont Creamery’s and Stepladder Creamery’s, but there are many, many more. Check them out.
Go for the truffle. The winter holidays are the time to go with fungus. You can find all sorts of amazing truffle cheeses out there, but heads up, you can also find some really bad, overly strong ones, too! Ask your cheesemonger for a taste before buying. A delicate one I especially like is Truf 3 Latti.
Make a solo plate with one of these, or a combo or 3 or 5 (because, odd numbers) and you’ll be golden. Just remember, have fun with it!
Enjoy the bling and your holidays!
Holiday Cheese Plate Guide, Take Two: Ideas.
I've been informed that as a cheese writer-blogger it is my duty to post about how to make a winter holiday cheese plate. As I am not the best at keeping up on my asbribed duties (I wait to water my house plants until they look like they're ready to croak and consider it a test to see how far my car will go with the yellow gas light on), it may or may not surprise you that I'm going to deliver as requested. Just in a slightly different way.
The thing is- there are already perfectly good and fabulous guides on how to make a winter cheese plate out there. Like this one that Casey Barber wrote on IVillage for which she interviewed my lovely cheese pal Tia Keenan and I. I've even said a little peice about holiday plates prior to Thanksgiving on my blog here.
Instead of trying to re-state or re-shape the wheel, I'm going to build off the wheel. Or, at least, I'm going to lightly push that wheel to get it rolling in hopes that it might be a little more helpful. In the aforementioned "Festive Fromage: How to Make the Perfect Cheese Tray" article, Tia and I shared a little advice.
Today I'm going to provide you with a little cheat sheet for following through with that advice. For a wedding, you want something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, well for a simple go-to cheese plate, it's easy to go with something A- mild & creamy, B- something hard and saltier, or firm and nutty, and C- something a little brighter and funkier (quick, someone make it rhyme!).
Here are some fabulous picks from to fill those genres, with links to read more about their deliciousness when applicable. The suggestions are merely that- use this as a guide only. I have faith that you can substitute at will! I know you guys are good.
MILD AND CREAMY
La Tur: - cow, sheep and goat.
Brazos Valley Eden (pic above)
Bent River brie- creamy, with cauliflower and truffle flavors.
Brie l'Original - rich, butter, mushroom.
Avalanche's Lamborn Bloomers - goat, mild, spreadable, sweet.
Mt. Townsend's Seastack - lightly tangy yet sweet, adorable, cow's milk.
Brillat Savarin (lead photo)
HARD AND SALTY, OR NUTTY AND FIRM
Abbaye de Belloc - nutty, brown butter
Bellwether San Andreas or Pepato
Comté - taste at a shop! There are some amazing importers, like Essex St, and then there are some bad ones, so try to taste before buying.
Pecorino- Foglie de Noce, Ginepro, try some new ones- go crazy!
Aged Goudas- salty & sweet & hard.
BRIGHT AND MAYBE FUNKY
Le Jeune Autize - like a goat's milk Morbier.
Mayor of Nye Beach - also goat's milk, lemony, funky, fresh.
Epoisses - creamy, stinky, sweet.
Cato Corner Hooligan - sliceable, sweet, funky, cow's milk.
Leaf-wrapped Robiola's - adorable, a little funky, and proud of it.
And.... you know how we mentioned the glorious-ity of bubbles and cheese? It's the truth, and it's easy. The following are some names of my favorite sparklings, from the Champagne region and beyond, and here's a more specific guide if you want to focus specifically on pairing cheese with sparklings.
Some of my quick go-tos:
Lucien Albrecht Crémant d'Alsace; Raventos Cava; Labet, Macle, Puffeney Crémant de Jura; Sommariva or Bisson Proseccos; Schrambserg or Domaine Carneros sparklings from California; Pierre Peters, Domaine Bouchard, Marie-Courtin, Diebolt-Vallois Champagne.
Hope this guide helps, and, Happy Holidays!
In case you missed it:
"Wine & Cheese Gifts to Make Your Holidays Bright" - my guide for buying for wine dorks and cheese geeks, Menuism.
Cheese Cork Labels- for your holiday party needs
If a follower of my twitter feed or Facebook page, you might already know I was in New York last week. Because, wow, did I talk about it. Let's just say I was almost as excited as a Swiss Alpine cow just let out of the barn in spring after being cooped up all winter (and I don't often compare myself to large farm animals). A couple opportunities to talk about my book in Manhattan arose, and any time I'm provided with an excuse to visit NYC, I latch on to it with all of my being.
Pan to a little book promotion.
I taught a class at Murray's Cheese! First time, a great experience with fantastic people. I visited Betsy and Brian at the Martha Stewart's Sirius radio station (crossing my fingers there's a link out there- it was a little bit of a blur, and I'd like proof that I behaved). Also had a chance to go to a Hurricane Sandy fundraiser at Brooklyn Brewery, walk through the still crisp and unfrozen Central Park, and then eat a little here and there.
Now, I'm back, and ready for... you guessed it. More cheese. And wine. And it just happens to be party season.
When prepping for my book release party back in November (which was sooooo much fun), I knew that I wanted a cute/nifty way to label the cheeses I was serving. My book was a focus of the party, sure, but what would my book be without the cheeses? A book with wine recommendations to __?____ , that's what. The cheeses needed their due respects.
I did a little research, found some cool ideas online, and put some corks to a good use. The cork labels worked smashingly for the large format cheese plates at my party, and I'd highly recommend them for home holiday use too. If you decide to use them at home, consider slicing the corks in half lengthwise if you're serving a smaller cheese plate. That is, if you're really crafty (I'm a whole cork kinda gal- the last time I got crafty before this was with my mom's glue gun and some felt at age twelve). If you do make that extra cut, be careful- use a sharp knife or a piece of equipment that a craftier person would know about.
How to make Wine Cork Cheese Labels.
Step 1 (see above photo) Get corks, card stock, something to aid in drawing straight lines, a pen to draw that line, things for coloring, a sharp knife, and paperclips.
Step 2. Take a piece of card stock and use something with a straight edge to mark where you'll cut the labels. I made my labels about two inches long and an inch high. This could be too big for a small cheese plate. If you're only making labels for plates made to serve 3-5 people, it might be wise to make smaller labels. * Note- I used a dark pen to make my lines with the idea that I would write the cheese names on the other side of the card stock, and no one would see the lines. But, it might have been a better idea to use a light pencil (see step 6).**********
Step 3: Cut your lines.
Step 4: Write your cheese names on the side of the labels without pen marks, and any other info you want your guests to know. Because my party was all about American cheese, I didn't write from what country the cheese came, I only chose to write the milk type and name.
Step 5: Pick your colors. I picked green for my Minnesota cheese. When the inspiration strikes, you just let it ride. You could color according to country, milk type (choosing green for cow, blue for goat, etc).
Step 6: Color the edges of your paper for happy cheese color flourishes. *** See how I colored the outside of every individual label? What might have been smarter would have been to color the lines on the paper before cutting. Instead of using black pen, I could have drawn the lines to cut very lightly with a pencil, then drew over them with the Crayons. That way I could have colored directly over the original card stock once -instead of coloring so many edges of the cut labels.
Step 7: Cut the cork (not coordinated enough to take a pic of this one, guys). Place the cork lengthwise on a table and use a sharp knife to score/cut the cork lengthwise just deep enough to inert the card stock. If you're making these for a very small plate, consider cutting the entire cork in half lengthwise, then flipping it over so it's flat side down on the table, then scoring/cutting it on it's curved side just enough so the card stock will slip in (as a less naturally crafty person, I just went full force, used the whole cork, and would probably do the same again).
Step 8: Make your kickstand. These corks don't stand up on their own. Insert a baby paperclip into the back of the cork to give it some support.
Step 9: Place in front of cheese!
Do you have any labeling techniques for your plates?
Next week: Holiday cheese plate focus.