Autumnal-Inspired Cheese Pairings
I am so grateful to live in the Northeast again, where autumn is at long last in full swing. With a new, bountiful season brings newfound pairing inspiration.
The last few weeks, I’ve seen end-of-summer cheese boards featuring everything from ripe, juicy stone fruit and watermelon with mozzarella, to strawberries and basil with whipped goat cheese. I’ve seen “here comes fall” boards with classic autumn cheese pairings like apples, maple syrup, and cinnamon, and I’ve even seen Halloween candy and cheese pairing recommendations!
I wanted to create a pairing guide with some classic cheeses that are mostly available year-round and can be found at a variety of cheese shops and some classic autumnal ingredients to celebrate this beautiful season that’s upon us. So light up a candle, pour yourself a glass of red and snuggle up in some plush cabin socks because fall is officially here! Ring in this time of year with all the yummy pairings.
In preparation for this pairing guide, I brainstormed with one of the cheese managers at my shop who has plentiful experience as a professional chef. I expected a couple of ideas here and there, but he broke out the most incredible book to consult: The Flavor Matrix: The Art and Science of Pairing Common Ingredients to Create Extraordinary Dishes. He literally keeps this in his car for tasting “emergencies,” and I was glad he does!
After much contemplation of the cheeses, and flavor profiles of ubiquitous fall foods and complements, we came up with these pairings:
Fromagerie Lincet Délice de Bourgogne on a Firehook graham cracker with a raw pecan on top
Milton Farms Prairie Breeze cheddar with a dollop of Stonewall Kitchen apple cider jam and nutmeg sprinkled on top
Point Reyes Bay Blue on a gala apple with cinnamon and a few drops of maple syrup
These pairings were a lot of fun to come up with, and I felt such a delicious fall mood come on as I treated myself to the planning, preparation, execution, and of course enjoyment of this board. I lived in Miami for two fall seasons prior to 2023, and I was feeling especially grateful to be able to experience this and so many activities that celebrate the season. I hope these pairing ideas bring you just as much enjoyment and gratitude.
We’ll begin with the pairings for Délice de Bourgogne, a triple-creme brie style cheese from Burgundy, France. This cheese is easy to find at many cheese shops and some groceries stores like Whole Foods, so you shouldn’t have much trouble getting your hands on it, hopefully! As a triple creme, the cows milk used to make this cheese had additional cream added to it. Plus, it has a high moisture content, as is characteristic of triple creme cheeses, which makes it positively melt in your mouth the instant it hits your tongue. Absolutely luscious.
With the Délice, I paired with some Firehook graham crackers I had lying around in my cupboard, and a raw pecan. I had originally wanted to forgo the cracker and go only with cranberry sauce (oh, so autumnal) and a caramelized pecan that I would caramelize myself. However, ending up with the graham cracker and the raw pecan that I was too tired to gussy up with brown sugar and honey worked out for the best, as this was my number one favorite pairing!
The cinnamon and slight, yet not overbearing sweetness from the graham cracker worked beautifully with the Délice. Plus the rich, buttery texture of the raw pecan played well with the melt-in-your-mouth texture of the cracker, and that did amazing things to make the buttery richness of the cheese last even longer. I’m really glad I was too lazy to caramelize the pecans, because in hindsight that would have made the whole bite too sweet, not to mention the potential for competing textures from the crunchy, sticky exterior of the pecan compared the the meltiness of the cracker and cheese. This bite was like autumnal velvet in my mouth… smooth, rich, sustaining, fortifying, I could go on and on! I’ll definitely be keeping this one up my sleeve for Thanksgiving appetizers!
Next we’ll move to Prairie Breeze, a gorgeous cheddar from Milton Farms in Iowa. This is the best-selling cheese in my entire store with over 125+ cheeses to choose from! It’s the perfect cheddar for people who aren’t sure or can’t decide what they want in a cheddar. It’s dense, yet not chewy, not especially sharp, but still acidic enough to be easily recognized as nicely aged, and it has those addictive tyrosine crystals to boot! Plainly, there is no one who wouldn’t like this cheese to some degree.
I think of cheddars being especially autumnal for some reason. I also think of cheddars as the quintessential New England cheese, what with all the production of it in Vermont and New York. I think of different regions of the country as having their own prideful cheese types, such as Gouda-styles in Wisconsin and goat cheeses in California, but I digress. So autumnal cheese in New Jersey for me means a classic cheddar (even though Prairie Breeze is from Iowa - just go with me here!)
With Prairie Breeze, we paired Stonewall Kitchen’s apple cider jam and a generous sprinkle of nutmeg. As my former chef friend said as we were brainstorming, there’s no spice more fall-esque than nutmeg! As I took my first bite, I noticed two different ways in which the cheese and the jam complemented one another. First, I was reminded of a rule of thumb in cheese: acid likes acid. The acidity from the cheese went very well with the acidity from the jam, and the whole combination was grounded in the earthiness of the nutmeg. Second, even though there is acidity in Prairie Breeze, there are also plenty of sweet cream and grassy notes. The top note of sugar in the jam complemented the cheese well in that way, too. All in all, thoroughly enjoyable and another solid pairing that was remarkably rich!
Finally, I tasted pairings with Point Reyes Bay Blue, a thick, creamy blue cheese from the well-known Point Reyes creamery in the same town which bears its name in California. From the initial taste, throughout the mouthfeel, to the finish Bay Blue gives the characteristic peppery note that most blues offer. With Bay Blue, although it’s a consistent experience of the blue flavor, it’s never overwhelming or unpleasant. Rather, it’s just the right amount of blue, balanced with the acidity of the velvety cows milk cheese that surrounds it.
I enjoyed the pairings with Bay Blue and they were most definitely autumnal to the fullest! I added a smudge of the blue cheese to a thin sliver of Gala apple from New York state, sprinkled a bit of cinnamon, and topped with just a few drops of Vermont maple syrup. It was literally a mouthful of fall!
The cinnamon brought a rich peppery note that matched that of the cheese, and the acidity of the apple most definitely helped cut through the very thick, creamy cheese. I tried this bite with and without maple syrup, and without it the whole bite is most definitely on the acidic / sharp side. However, once you add just a few drops of that amber elixir, it makes the mouthfeel silky and luxurious as all heck. On the finish, I had equal parts cheese and apple juice from the Gala apple coating my mouth, and it definitely stays with you for a bit!
Here’s hoping that your fall season got off to just as auspicious a start as mine did, and you continue exploring cheeses & pairings by the season for the rest of 2023 and beyond!
