Baby Cheeses Update: The First Tasting

This weekend we went out to Hamilton to visit our dear friends Micheal & Tanya (whom you may remember from other delicious adventures such as Tanya’s Caesar Salad & Arepas). Michael has been following my Baby Cheese Updates on Instagram, and asked if one of the Baby Cheeses would be ready for sampling on Saturday.

All week, I hoped that the cheeses would be ripe enough — and on Saturday morning I went off to cheese class.  One of my classmates brought one of her cheeses and cut into it, and right then and there I knew I had to cut into one of my own cheeses ASAP.  So when I left the city to go visit our friends, Cooler Cheese #3 came with me!

To treat it with the ultimate respect, we put it on a cheese board with some blue cheeses, pickles, apple, fig & onion chutney, gluteny toast slices, and gluten-free flatbread slices.  The cheeses, clockwise from 12 o’clock were: Valdeón, Roquefort, My Baby Cheese, Stilton, and St. Agur.

And then it was time to cut into my baby cheese:

My verdict: not as ripe as I’d like, but I’m REALLY pleased with this cheese.  (Louise got a perfectly ripe cheese, and I’m a teeny bit jealous!)

It tasted fresh, like grass, clover, and sweet milk.  It wasn’t oozy or runny like I like my Camemberts, but it was definitely creamy.  The flavour was perfectly balanced with just the right amount of salt/sweet/savoury.

You can see that in one spot, it got little pockets of the bloomy white pencillium mold inside the paste of the cheese:

I totally adore this photo of the baby cheese that Michael took & shared on Instagram:

It was so great to be able to taste the cheese with Mr. KitchenOperas, Michael, and Tanya. Sharing food with people you love is the best part of making anything edible.

Next week, our baby cheeses go with us to cheese class, and we will be able to taste everyone’s best successes!