Cheese Fest

Archive for the ‘German’ Category

Bavaria Blu

Sometimes sold under the name of Cambazola or Blue Brie, this pleasant little cheese that is easily available in many supermarkets. Though the alternative names suggest it could be Italian or French, it is actually German.

It is, by all accounts a blue Brie, using the same recipe as ordinary Brie. However, introducing the blue moulds is somewhat unconventional. Normally, the mould culture is added to the milk. During maturation, and starved of oxygen, it lies dormant until stainless steel wires are used to puncture the rind. With Bavaria Blu, the mould culture is introduced during maturation by injecting it directly into the cheese. This causes the blue moulds to be localised into little pockets rather than veins that pervade the paste.

Coated with a soft, dusty, edible, white rind. It has a cream to white paste, mottled with blue splodges, making it a quite attractive looking cheese.

Like a Brie, it has little or no smell, but unlike Brie it doesn’t produce a smell of ammonia when it gets really ripe.

It has a soft creamy texture, interspersed with the slightly harder patches of blue. A soft, delicate Brie like flavour with a gently blueness. As blue cheeses go, it is very inoffensive. A blue cheese for people that don’t like blue cheese.

Purchased from most leading supermarkets.

Produced by various manufacturers including: Cambazola, Bergader & Edelweiß

Reviewed by Nick & Olympia 2012

(3/5)

Wildblumenkäse

This rather peculiar and delightful offering was brought over, a couple of weeks ago, from Germany by Marjam (aka Maus) a lifelong friend of Olympia’s.It comes from the Allgäu in the Alpine area of southern Germany……and, yes, it is covered with wild flowers! Wildblumenkäse   The pate is a pale yellow, with the odd round bubble hole in it, very similar to many other Alpine cheeses. Of course, what makes this particular cheese rather unique is that they coat it in colourful, dried, wild flowers. Red, orange, mauve, white and green petals and herbs make it look more like pot-puris than a cheese, and it smells like it too. The rind smells of hay, lavender and aromatic pipe tobacco. The pate itself has a very faint alpine cheese smell. The flavour is mild, sweet and milky. The rind is edible, and it’s a good job too, because it turns this otherwise bland and unexciting cheese into something special. The rind tastes much like it smells: lavender; hay; flowers and herbs, with a subtle but definite underlying Alpine flavour. An interesting experience and definitely something to seek out if you find yourself in that part of the world.   [the feet in the picture are German cheese biscuits, called käsefüss (Cheesy Feet) also brough over by Maus ]

Reviewed by Nick & Olympia, 2013.

(3/5)