homemade French Neufchâtel
The magic of cheese
A few days ago, I made a batch of French Neufchâtel while the previous one was still ripening. Each batch resulted in three cheeses, one of which is heart-shaped as a result of using the traditional mold (see this post for details). The age difference between the two cheeses is 13 days. When I took the photo, the cheese on the right had been ripening for only two days, while the one on the left had been ripening for 15 days.
Penicillum candidum and Geotrichium candidum are the molds responsible for creating the velvety layer that makes this cheese pretty. And part of the fun of making a bloomy-rind cheese is to see their surface "bloom."
This is my submission to week #7 edition of Black and White Wednesday - A Culinary Photography Event, recently launched by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook.
The photo was shot in color and then converted to black and white. (I actually took a few photos of the ripening cheese using the black and white setting, but was not happy with the results.)
This post contains the gallery of photos submitted to the event.
P.S. As of this writing, we have eaten one of the smaller cheeses from the earlier batch and it was excellent. There was again a basket of strawberries in my CSA box, so I will soon make this frittata.
