Cheese Glorious Cheese

It's been a while since my last post - but hopefully getting married is a good excuse for the hiatus!  With the wedding now one month behind us, it's been fun to reflect on the day - the memories of being surrounded by our nearest and dearest, the luck of sunshine for a beautiful outdoor ceremony, the chaotic swirl of limbs that comes with an energetic ceilidh dance.... but what's sticking in the mind at the moment is the mouth-watering goodness that was our wedding cake - a tiered cake of cheese.

We sourced all of the cheese from our favourite cheese shop, La Cave à Fromage.  While they do not (yet) have wedding cakes of cheese as a standard offering, they were quite happy to work with us to identify cheeses that we both loved and would also realistically work as a layer in our cake.  Here's what we had:

Montgomery Cheddar (a cow's milk cheese from Somerset)

Mimolette (a cow's milk cheese from Lille, France - we'd wanted Aged Gouda, but its truckle size and brittle properties made it a lesser candidate for the cake)

Fougeru (a cow's milk soft-cheese from France - the one with the fern leaves on top, which was originally sitting upright but continued to traverse downward, readying itself for the eating!)

Epoisses (a gloriously pungent cow's milk, wash-rind cheese from France - note that we kept it in its plastic container as it would have been a runny mess otherwise!)

Crozier Blue (a sheep's milk blue cheese from Ireland)

Figuettes (French goat's cheeses sprinkled with ash, tarragon, and paprika)

Crottin de Chavignol (goat's cheese from the Loire Valley, France)

Our florist had agreed to assemble the cake and decorate it and she did a terrific job.  Veering slightly away from tradition, we cut our wedding cake immediately after the ceremony to kickoff the celebrations with some cheese and bubbly before dinner.  Our only regret is not finding enough time to actually enjoy it to the degree we would have liked - too busy chatting with guests and getting photos taken....  Ah well, I suppose this is a good excuse to find another occasion to have a cake of cheese... best to consider this one the first of many!