A few months ago I attended a cheese making workshop at one of the local ranches. Actually, I went to two. The first was all about making yogurt and simple cheeses like queso fresco. I enjoyed it so much, I signed right up for the second one, all about “bloomy-rinded cheeses”. Aged cheeses like Camembert are inoculated with mold spores, so that at a certain point in the aging process, they literally “bloom” with fungi. Is it any wonder these are my favorite?
Here is a picture of my second batch made at home, using local raw milk. You can see the light coating of white mold, and just a bit of black fleck from the vegetable ash:
Today (September 15th) I saw the first signs of mold bloom on my latest batch of Camemberts. Here is a closeup photo of the early bloom, and the dry edge that usually appears a day or two before the mold:
Sweet Hollow Almanac 