Pairing Christmas Candy with Cheese

Holiday Cheese and Candy photo credit Roth Cheese

While milk and cookies might be the traditional snack left for certain seasonal, overnight gift-delivery people, there’s another, more sophisticated option that still sticks to the dairy-plus-sweet formula: cheese and candy. ‘Tis the season for Christmas-themed cheese plates, and you needn’t only resort to a well-placed rosemary and cranberry garnish to achieve seasonal flair. It is possible to pair traditional Christmas candies and sweets with classic and contemporary cheeses. All it takes is a little imagination. Or, dare we say, Fromagination?

Who better, then, to rise to our Christmas-candy pairing challenge than Ken Monteleone, owner of Madison-based cheese shop Fromagination. It takes a certain whimsy to stake one’s personal and professional claim on that kind of word play—curd play?—and he recalls his naming decision being made with a healthy dose of second-guessing: “I already had in mind this idea of ‘expanding your imagination in the world of cheese;’” he says, “With Fromagination, either people are going to laugh at me, or they’re going to remember it.” (Doubtless, they have done both.) But this whimsy is surely what is required to casually suggest exemplary cheeses to pair with items like candy canes and chocolate Santas.

Monteleone partially credits the rising trend in makers of a multitude of artisanal foods in Wisconsin with his ability to pair cheese to anything he gets sent. While there are no rigid rules for pairing cheese with anything other than, “does it taste good to you?” there are some tried-and-true approaches we shared in a story on pairing Halloween candy and cheese, like mirroring and contrast that Monteleone utilizes here in making some suggestions both naughty and nice.

Peppermint with Pleasant Ridge Reserve 

Peppermint and Pleasant Ridge Reserve, photo credit Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

File this under “pleasantly surprised.” Whether you take your peppermint fix in the form of candy canes, peppermint bark, a peppermint mocha, or even something like chocolatier Gail Ambrosius’s peppermint toffee bark the latter helped Montelone discover a cheese pairing for peppermint when he was sent a sample.

“With the peppermint toffee bark, one of our favorites right now is Upland’s Pleasant Ridge Reserve. When combined it really sings,” says Monteleone. Pleasant Ridge Reserve is a grass-fed, raw, cow’s milk cheese modeled after France’s Beaufort. “There’s lots of depth and layers of flavor (in both items.) There’s nuance with a grassy note and a hint of pineapple (in the cheese,) and the peppermint toffee just takes that cheese to the next level and brings out some flavors you wouldn’t notice in the cheese alone. It’s kind of strong, but it really works well.” (This is what I mean by a naughty pairing.)

For a similar style cheese, try a Gruyère or Beaufort

Marzipan Candy with Dunbarton Blue

marzipan and Dunbarton blue photo credit Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

Marzipan candies are often shaped and decorated like tiny fruits, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean they work like fruits in a pairing situation. Marzipan is loud, flavor-wise, very sweet, and vibrantly nutty, and needs an equally strong companion to do it justice. For flavor combined with strength, Dunbarton Blue, made by 4th generation Swiss cheesemaker Chris Roelli, is equal to the task. Says Monteleone: “It’s an English style cheddar infused with blue molding, but the flavor is predominantly cheddar, with some unique notes that you don’t often get with cheddars because it’s cave-aged.” The saltiness and gentle funkiness offset the sweetness, with a strength of flavor that can match marzipan’s.

For a similar style cheese, try a strong, English or English-style cheddar

Terry’s Chocolate Orange with Sartori SarVecchio

Terrys and Satori SarVecchio

As a kid, I always felt cheated that 25% of the tiny Whitman’s sampler I used to get in my stocking was wasted on a piece of chocolate that tasted like citrus. When I learned of the existence of Terry’s Orange Chocolate, which had a novelty shape going for it, I was altogether sold.

For those whose Christmas would be incomplete without a chocolate orange, Monteleone recommends Sartori SarVecchio as an amicable companion. “SarVecchio is modeled after Parmigiano Reggiano but a lot sweeter.” While SarVecchio is a domestic cheese, it follows that an Italian-style cheese would work with citrus, which is abundant in Southern Italy, and just the kind of tartness that the Parm-like saltiness craves. “I just think the flavors of that cheese would work with anything citrusy,” says Monteleone. “Even just a raw orange dipped in chocolate.”

 For a similar style option, try a salty, Italian cheese like Parmigiano Reggiano or an aged Pecorino.

Peanut Brittle with Anabasque

peanut brittle and Anabasque photo credit Landmark Creamery

“I’m thinking of a cheese that has a nutty profile,” offers Monteleone, “A sheep’s milk cheese would pair nicely…” There are certain milk types that can’t be divorced from certain tasting notes, and “nutty,” tends to be a common descriptor for sheep’s milk. Peanuts in particular tie some of the toasted notes of sheep’s milk cheese, with the richer, gamey quality it also brings.

Ultimately Monteleone named Anabaque, a Spanish-style Basque cheese made by two female cheesemakers at Landmark Creamery, for a pairing that marries the nutty quality between the cheese and candy, and brings a zip of tang to offset peanut brittle’s sweetness.

For a similar style cheese, try Idiazabal.

Milk Chocolate Santas with GranQueso

Chocolate and Gran Queso photo credit Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin

This is a pairing that works on multiple levels, as many of the best pairings do. As Montelone describes the cheese, “Roth GranQueso is a cow’s milk cheese with a kind of basket weave that they soak in paprika, so it ends up having some spiciness and sweetness.” Sweetness to mirror the sweetness of milk chocolate, spiciness to contrast—à la Mexican chocolate—and finally paprika which makes it...red. Because, Santa.

The only way this pairing could be more poetic is if it was made with Reindeer milk.

For a similar style cheese, try a Portugese Serpa.

Fruitcake with...

Fruitcake isn’t technically candy, though it certainly has a candied quality to it, and as a ubiquitous Christmas sweet treat that everyone is bound to encounter, so consider the cheese plate a worthy place for a few slices. Is your fruitcake soaked in brandy, whiskey or rum? If so, you might find some insight as to what cheese to best pair with it by visiting Yes, You Can Pair Spirits With Cheese at our sister site, Alcohol Professor, which will really get you in the Christmas spirit.