Camembert Repair

You may recall that my very first foray into proper cheese-making last Spring (not counting mozzarella and ricotta, of course) was also my least successful to date. By least successful I mean that after two months of napping in my refrigerator's crisper drawer my four little mold-ripened babies emerged as unappetizing rubber hockey pucks coated with a thick gritty rind that resisted all but my sharpest chef's knife.

It was extremely disappointing.

Faint heart never won fair fromage, however, so as soon as the weather got a bit cooler and I had several weeks to devote to The Cause I decided to try again.

Ever the good scientist, I first I attempted to analyze where I went wrong with my first batch. All the evidence indicated that I had done everything right during fabrication: my rennet had set the cheese nicely; I obtained a good yield from my two gallons of beautiful raw Jersey milk; and the cheeses' fur coats had grown right on schedule. There had been no unwanted visitors in the form of black mold or the dreaded poil de chat and my cheese smelled fresh and clean with no hint of ammonia.

Only the texture had been off. Undeniably off. Disastrously off. Like that of dried-out husks filled with the stuff from which they make golf balls.

I reasoned, therefore, that the damage had occurred during affinage, when the wee bugs in the cheese - left to their own devices - work overtime ripening and softening the paste to spreadable heaven. I had known - intellectually, at least - that the microbes required quite a lot of humidity if they were to do their worst (or best, in this case), so I had placed two big bowls of water in the bottom of my cave, trusting them to do the trick. Later, when the cheeses were suitably fuzzy and I had moved them to the bottom drawer of the fridge, I made do with one small rice-bowl of water, figuring the ambient humidity of my chill chest would be sufficient.

Obviously, it wasn't.

So this time, I left nothing to chance. Instead of allowing my four babies to ripen in the cave free range (where at any rate they would have risked catching a skin condition from the Blue-Cheese-In-The -Style-of-Stilton-Perhaps that is quarantined on the top shelf), I engineered for them simple but effective humidity chambers comprised of lidded Oxo storage containers, sushi mats, and rolled-up sheets of wet paper towels. After a week of this treatment at 55 deg F, my new camemberts had lovely downy coats that were soft and supple and depressed easily under thumb-applied pressure. No sign of grittiness now!

I wrapped the cheeses and moved them - still inside their boxes, the interiors of which were by this time covered in little dewy drops of moisture - to the bottom of the fridge, where the lower temperature of 45 deg F slowed down mold growth and jump-started the ripening process. I rotated the containers and opened their lids every other day to allow gas exchange and check for signs of trouble. I perhaps poked the cheeses rather more than they would have liked, but that is, after all, typical behavior in an anxious parent.

After four weeks of fretful anxiety, Sir and I could stand the suspense no longer. We allowed one of the camemberts to come to room temperature and carefully sliced ourselves a small wedge. We examined it from all angles: the rind appeared to be appropriately thin and there was a hint of runniness right at the edges. Success!

We tasted the cheese and found it to be delicious delicious delicious. We gobbled some plain, and some with homemade fig jam, and I think Sir might have spread some of his on Ritz crackers. We considered sharing the remainder with others but finished the whole thing before we deciding upon suitable victims.

A blissful and satisfying experience to be sure, but during the post-mortem that always concludes a tasting event here a chez Fractured Amy we considered the camembert with a dispassionate eye. I was forced to admit there had been a hint of chalkiness towards the middle of the cheese (just visible on the cut surface of the wedge, below) - indicating we had opened it a little too early. A slight tanginess confirmed that it wasn't quite ready. Never mind - there were still three left!

Homemade camembert, week four

The following Saturday (week 5 for those of you keeping track), we opened the next one. The runniness had expanded towards the cheese's center and all lemony flavors were extinguished by unmistakable camembertness. I almost wept with joy and Sir declared it my best cheese since the Wensleydale. The following picture was taken at room temperature - observe the ooey-gooey wonderfulness!

Homemade camembert, week five

Finally, this past Saturday, we opened Cheese Number Three. It differed from the previous one not at all, leading us to believe that the peak of perfection had been reached and it was time to get snacking before those remaining started to roll down the wrong side of the Hill of Ripeness. This cheese was consumed by third parties before I was able to take a picture of it - one small wedge was all that remained by the time I got round to preserving it for posterity:

Homemade camembert, week six

Is it not a thing of beauty?

I still have one cheese from this batch left. It will be my offering with cocktails before the annual turkey-fest on Thursday, where it shall be called Walking-on-Air Camembert.

And for that, I am truly thankful.