Cheeseboard Creation – Make It Appetizing and Beautiful
There’s no real secret to preparing the perfect cheeseboard. With these tips, Woman Around Town readers can impress family and friends with their creativity. Serve a cheeseboard as an appetizer, make it a pleasurable meal, or present it as a dessert choice. Select the items you wish to use, add your own special touches, and have fun making something delicious and attractive.
-Start with a nice platform. It can be a good-looking cutting board, a marble plate made to serve cheeses, or even your everyday serving plates or platters. A flat surface is best. If you are serving multiple guests, consider making individual boards on small plates.
-Decide what cheeses you want to serve. Have at least two to three selections with different textures and flavor profiles. You may wish to visit a cheese shop or talk to the cheesemonger at a specialty store. There are also great choices in local supermarkets with brands such as Cello offering delightful craft cheeses.
-Select a variety of crackers, breadsticks, or crostini. Place them strategically around the board so they can be paired with your cheeses.
-Incorporate fresh berries, grapes, slices of citrus, apple wedges, or firm melon cubes. Add baby tomatoes, olives, gerkins, carrots and celery sticks. Fruit and veggies make the board colorful and healthier.
-Serve hard cheeses crumbled, slice medium body cheeses, and place soft cheeses like brie or camambert in a single piece.
-Honey, mustard, and jam are a great touch on your cheeseboard in small containers as garnishes. Shot glasses work well as containers for them.
-Use little knives for spreading garnishes and soft cheese along with small forks or toothpicks for serving pieces of cheese. You might want to explore utensils made for serving cheese. Make plenty of them available on your board.
-Add some pieces of chocolate and a selection of nuts. A mix of sweet and salty is delicious and also complements the cheeses.
-A cheeseboard typically has cheese, fruit, nuts and garnishes while “charcuterie” boards also have meats like salami, ham, and prosciutto. Add small pieces of meats if you wish. Layer them in short rows.
-Be sure to distribute your items in different areas of the board. Not only will it have a creative flair, it will also allow people to serve themselves from the different sections.
-Finish the look of your board with sprigs of rosemary or edible flowers.
Everybody loves to indulge in a cheeseboard. Pair yours with a glass of wine, beer or a cocktail and you have a simple, yet satisfying extra course or even a full meal.
Top photo: Bigstock
