Advent Calendar 2025 5-12

Rather boring over the last few days - herbs again (as on the day before), Gouda again, cheddar, red cheddar, cheddar, then Gouda for three days! Oh dear. Not good enough.

Harrogate Blue

Harrogate Blue is matured for a minimum of 10 weeks, the optimum time for a cheese to develop a right depth of flavour and creaminess. It was launched in 2012 and has won a numberof awards. It is produced by the company Shepherds Purse, which was gebun by Judy Bell in the late eighties, and was the first cheese co-produced by her daughters, Katie and Caroline, after taking over the running of the speciality cheese company from their mother. It was judged to be the 11th best cheese in the world at the World Cheese Awards in London in 2017/18. Like all Shepherds Purse cheeses it is made with pasteurised milk and vegetarian rennet.

Blue Monk

Award winning Blue Monk is a soft, creamy, blue cheese made in individual pieces, around 230g in weight. They are made with raw cow's milk and are pierced twice and turned as they mature for up to 28 days before wrapping. They then continue to mature and soften as they age becoming softer and creamier with time. They are produced by Monkland Cheesemakers in Herefordshire.

Advent Calendar 2025 2-4

Day one's Edam has been followed by Gouda, red Cheddar and a cheese (seemed to be cheddar) with herbs. Very processed but a decent chunk each time. I'm enjoying it.

Advent Calendar 2025 - 01

I've got a new advent calendar thiis year which I started today - Edam behind the first door.

Christmas cheese?

Snowbell Noel™ Cheese

Type: Semi-soft, cave-ripened holiday cheese

Milk: A blend of cow’s and goat’s milk

Appearance:

Snowbell Noel is shaped like a small, plump bell—about the size of a large orange—with a snowy white, edible rind dusted in crushed, freeze-dried cranberry powder. Thin ribbons of green rosemary ash spiral around the outside like garlands.

Texture:

Inside, the cheese is pale ivory and marbled with tiny ruby specks of candied cranberry. The paste is supple and creamy near the rind but becomes luxuriously gooey at room temperature, almost like a Christmas fondue wrapped in its own rind.

Aroma:

A gentle mix of winter herbs, warm cream, and a hint of citrus zest. When cut open, it releases a cozy aroma reminiscent of roasted chestnuts and mulled wine steam.

Flavor:

First taste: Mild creaminess with a whisper of goat-milk tang

Mid-notes: Savory rosemary, subtle pine, and a warming hint of nutmeg

Finish: A gently sweet, fruity sparkle from the candied cranberries and a soft orange-zest brightness

The flavor profile is deliberately engineered to taste like a cheese plate and holiday dessert in one bite.

How it’s made:

The milk is infused with a slow-steeped blend of winter herbs (rosemary, bay, juniper) before culturing. During curd formation, tiny pieces of crystallized cranberry are folded in. After shaping, the cheese is dusted in cranberry powder and wrapped loosely in spruce bark strips to age for a month in cool, humid cellars.

How to serve it:

Let it warm on the table until it becomes spoonably soft.

Pair with warm gingerbread slices or toasted brioche.

Perfect with a spiced cider, a sweet Riesling, or hot chocolate (yes, shockingly good).

Optional holiday tradition:

Tap the top gently with a spoon - its “bell” shape gives off a satisfying soft thunk, signalling that Christmas can officially begin.

Vallage Triple Cream

This is a French brie-like rich and indulgent triple cream cheese with a decadent melt in the mouth texture and deliciously sweet, buttery taste. The cheese has a light bloomy rind that can be trimmed away to reveal a smooth, velvety centre. Such cheeses are made by adding extra cream to cow's milk, resulting in a very high butterfat content and a rich, buttery, and melt-in-your-mouth texture. Vallage is in the Champagne region of France but the word can be used more generally for such cheese.

Dragon's Breath

Native to the craggy, volcanic mountain ranges of the Ignilid people, this black cheese is a popular and potent delicacy. Visually, it is a striking, deep, matte black, its colour coming from a unique local fungus called Izoret. The surface is uneven and gnarled, like cooled obsidian.

The aroma is intense, reminiscent of a damp, volcanic mine - initially pungent and smoky, with a surprising hint of sweetness.

When served young, the cheese has a firm but creamy, slightly rubbery texture. With age, it hardens into a dense, crumbly stone, becoming increasingly sharp.

The initial taste is a powerful, sharp hit of intense, earthy flavour, quickly followed by a numbing, tingling sensation. Hints of charcoal, brine and a whisper of mountain herbs linger on the tongue.

Traditionally made from the milk of large, domesticated mountain bats, some producers now use goat or cow milk. The Izoret fungus is intentionally cultivated on the wheel, producing a natural antibiotic that allows for long-term storage, making it ideal for travellers and adventurers.

Consuming a large enough quantity can cause temporary paralysis, so it is only for the most seasoned connoisseurs.

Robiola Bosina

Robiola is an Italian soft-ripened cheese of the stracchino family. It is from the Langhe region and made with varying proportions of cow's, goat's, and sheep's milk. One theory is that the cheese gets its name from the comune (municipality) of Robbio, in the province of Pavia; another that the name comes from the word rubeole (ruddy) because of the color of the seasoned rind.

Varieties of robiola are produced across Piedmont from the provinces of Cuneo, Asti and Alessandria and into Lombardy. It is one of the specialties of the Aosta Valley. The taste and appearance of robiola vary depending on where it was produced. Varieties inckude Robiola di Roccaverano DOC/PDO and Robiola Lombardia and La Tur. Robiola from the Piedmont region is a fresh cheese, and is usually eaten on its own, or with a little honey.

Robiola Bosina is a square soft cheese made with pasteurised cow's and sheep's milk. "Bosina" refers to Bosia, a town in the Alta Langa area in Piedmont.

The cheese has a long history that is sometimes traced back to the Celto-Ligurian farmers of the Alta Langa: the virtues of cheese from Ceba (today Ceva) were extolled by the first-century Pliny the Elder in his Natural History but any identification of that cheese with the robiola of today must be speculative. However, in his Summa Lacticiniorum, the fifteenth-century dairy produce expert Pantaleone da Confienza did describe the manufacture, and praise the quality, of a cheese with this name.

Robiola is generally served as a table cheese, either alone or with oil, salt and pepper. It must be stored properly after being purchased, and will keep fresh for up to one month. Its tangy taste is attributable to being infused with the wild herbs on which the animals pasture. Robiola can also be used in cooking including famous Piemonte dishes such as risotto robiola and aglio robiola spaghetti among other dishes. Special care should be exercised in properly storing the cheese (do not wrap in plastic, as the cheese can "choke" and spoil). It is best stored refrigerated unwrapped in its crust or wrapped in paper, and used within a week of purchase.

Normandy Tomme

Normandy Tomme or Tomme de Normandie is a semi-hard artisan French pressed cheese from the Normandy region, known for its soft, melting texture, ivory-coloured paste and its fruity, nutty flavour with a hint of acidity. It is made from locally sourced, often GMO-free cow's milk, aged in cellars on wooden boards for several months, developing a thick, grey, rustic rind. Some speak of its mellow, buttery flavour with its subtle earthy undertones.This versatile cheese is excellent on a cheese board with cider, melted on toast or in recipes like gratins and tarts.

Navarra Smoked Ewe Cheese

Delicious award winning artisanal raw (unpasteurised) sheep milk cheese from Navarra in the Basque region of Northern Spain. A hard pale yellow cheese with a smokey richness that melts in the mouth.

Saval

I was in Aberystwyth again recently and I bought some Saval there. Saval is a rich, pungent and tangy raw-milk cheese made by Caws Teifi Cheese in Ceredigion. It is a rind-washed cheese, which gives it a lovely aroma and a creamy but dense and savoury taste.

Like most of Teifi’s other cheeses, Saval has won an impressive range of awards over the years, including Golds at the World Cheese Awards, and the James Aldridge Memorial Trophy for the Best British Raw Milk Cheese, often seen as the highest accolade in British artisan raw milk cheesemaking.

Caws Teifi was established by John Savage-Onstwedder and his family in the early 1980s and over the past 40 years has become one of the most highly awarded artisan cheesemakers in Britain. It remains a small scale family business, these days led by John’s sons Rob and John-James.

Brunost (Gudbrandsdalen)

Brunost (lit. 'brown cheese') is a common Norwegian name for mysost (lit. 'whey cheese'), a family of soft cheese-related foods made with whey, milk and/or cream. The characteristic brown colour and sweet taste result from milk sugars being caramelizsed after boiling. The term brunost is often used to refer to fløtemysost or Gudbrandsdalsost, which are the most popular varieties.

Brunost is primarily produced in Norway and is popular there, and has spread to South Korea. It is regarded as one of Norway's most iconic foodstuffs, and is considered an important part of the country's gastronomical and cultural identity and heritage.

Boiling down whey 10:1 to create a brown, cheesy spread (such as the Norwegian prim and Swedish messmör) has been common in Scandinavian countries for at least 2,500 years. An archeological find from September 2016 in central Jutland has determined that a cheese residue on pottery from circa 650 BC is a type of cheese, potentially similar to brunost.

However, the creation of the modern, firm, fatty brunost is commonly attributed to the milkmaid Anne Hov from the rural valley of Gudbrandsdalen. In the second half of the 19th century, Gudbrandsdalen was suffering economically due to falling profits from grain and butter sales. While working at the Valseter mountain farm near Gålå in 1863, Anne Hov (sometimes spelled Anne Haav) came up with the idea of adding cream to the whey when boiling, and to boil it down in an iron pot until the fluid content was reduced to less than 80%, creating a firmer, fattier, more cheese-like product. She originally called it feitost ('fat cheese'). The name later changed into fløtemysost ('cream whey cheese'). The product immediately caught on, and was soon commonly produced and consumed in the area. This variety is currently the second most popular type in Norway. In 1805, Ole Olsen Evenstad, from what is now Stor-Elvdal Municipality, wrote his cheese manuscript, Om Brug af Myse og dens Indkogning til Myssmør, but Evenstad does not mention goat's milk or cream as an additive.

When Hov married and moved to Rusthågå farm in Nord-Fron Municipality, she started larger-scale production and invented a variety where she added goat's milk to the mix for a more pronounced taste. Local trader Ole Kongsli liked it so much he thought there might be a market for the product in the capital, Oslo. He started exporting it to his business contacts there under the name Gudbrandsdalsost, and it became so successful that it contributed significantly to the economy of the region, thus helping Gudbrandsdalen out of recession. In 1933, at age 87, Hov received the King's Medal of Merit (Kongens fortjenstmedalje) for her contributions to Norwegian cuisine and economy.

In modern times, the world's largest producer of brunost is the Norwegian dairy co-operative Tine, which markets a total of 13 varieties, as well as three types of prim. Second-largest is Norwegian dairy company Synnøve Finden, which markets two varieties of brunost, as well as two varieties of prim. There are also a number of smaller, artisanal producers, mainly in Norway and in the US.

Mysost is a family of cheese-related foods made with whey, milk and/or cream. The main ingredient, whey, is a byproduct of the cheese making process; it is what is left when the cheese is removed from the milk. Therefore, brunost is not technically cheese. However, it is produced by cheese makers, and is sold, handled and consumed in the same way as cheese. Therefore, it is generally regarded as a cheese. The texture is firm, but slightly softer than Gouda cheese, for example, and lends itself well to cutting and shaping. It does not crumble like hard cheeses. The taste is sweet, and best described as caramel-like but with a tang that is more noticeable in the variants that contain goat's milk. The variant ekte geitost ('true goat's cheese') contains only whey and goat's milk and has an intense, chèvre-like taste that cuts the sweetness.

Brunost is made by boiling a mixture of milk, cream and whey carefully for several hours so that the water evaporates. The heat turns the milk sugars into caramel, which gives the cheese its characteristic brown colour and sweetness. It is ready for consumption as soon as it is packed and refrigerated. Low-fat varieties are made by increasing the proportion of whey to milk and cream.

In Norway, brunost is commonly divided into two types: those that contain only cow's cream and/or milk and the ones that contain some proportion of goat's milk. The latter type is commonly called geitost or gjetost ('goat cheese'). Varieties that do not contain any cow's milk are called ekte geitost ('true goat cheese'). Technically, the name 'true goat cheese' is misleading, since goat cheese is relatively uncommon in Norway, and is commonly called hvit geitost ('white goat cheese') to avoid confusion.

By far the most popular variety is Gudbrandsdalsost, which contains a mixture of cow and goat milk, cream and whey. Heidal cheese is a type of Gudbrandsdalsost. In Norway it is so common that it is simply referred to as brunost or geitost, assuming that unless otherwise specified, Gudbrandsdalsost will be provided. This variety is also the most popular internationally and in the US it is commonly referred to just as gjetost. The second most popular variety is fløtemysost, which has a milder taste due to the lack of goat's milk. The third most popular type is ekte geitost.

Related to brunost are prim (Norwegian) or messmör (Swedish), which is a soft, sweet spread commonly sold in tubes all across the Nordic countries. This is the original, ancient product made by boiling whey for a shorter period of time than brunost and not adding milk or cream. Also, in Norway, pultost is traditionally made from byproducts of the brunost-making process, and has a very distinctive flavour.