Eating fruit cake with cheese is commonplace in Yorkshire and is becoming more and more popular all over the UK, particularly at Christmas time.
To help you make the most of this delicious combination this festive season we have paired up all our fruit cakes with some wonderful cheeses – some pairings more unexpected than others!
Cherry Orchard
Made on the Welbeck Estate in neighbouring Nottinghamshire to a traditional Stilton recipe but with unpasteurised milk, Stichelton is hand-ladled to produce a creamy, nutty cheese with a rich yet gentle blue note. It is delicious with the sweet, almondy notes of the Cherry Orchard fruit cake.
Ginger Tingle
Traditionally served with Eccles Cakes, Kirkham’s Lancashire Cheese is the last and only farmhouse Lancashire made from unpasteurised milk.
Made by the Kirkham family in the village of Goosnargh near Longridge, Graham learnt to make Lancashire cheese from his mother (the famous Mrs Kirkham) who learnt from her mother…
The Kirkham’s make both creamy (aged up to 12 weeks) & tasty (aged over 12 weeks) Lancashire. Theirs is a more traditional version of Lancashire than the crumbly Lancashire now made by many modern dairies, giving a buttery, yoghurty flavour with a fluffy, light texture that melts in the mouth, and an excellent foil for the mouth warming effect of the Ginger Tingle fruit cake.
Cinnamon Pippin
Now made by Andy Ridley in Richmond, Richard III Wensleydale Cheese is one of the only artisan-produced Wensleydale cheeses available.
Originally made to a traditional pre-war recipe by Suzanne Stirke who discovered her grandmother’s cheese-making notes for Wensleydale in the attic, & decided to recreate Wensleydale cheese as it would have once been. It was named after Suzanne’s dairy – Fortmayne Dairy – based near Middleham, which was the childhood home of the future Richard III.
Most of the modern industrial production had turned to ‘faster-make’, which produces a drier, more crumbly, acidic Wensleydale.
Coco Bazaar
Waterloo is a mild, semi-soft Guernsey milk cheese with a buttery flavour, made by Anne and Andy Wigmore near Riseley in Berkshire. Complementing the rich, perfumed & complex flavours in the Chocolate fruit cake, it is made using a wash curd method which dilutes the acidity to achieve a soft, gentle flavour. Its distinctive yellow colour is due to the natural carotene in the unpasteurised Guernsey milk which comes from a single herd of pedigree Guernsey cows near Henley.
Enjoy!