Peachy Picks: Cheese Board Champion
As we enter the festive season with less than 40 days until Christmas, we also enter hosting season! Avoid the hosting stress and let us teach you how to make a show stopping cheese board to wow your guests when they arrive.
A cheese board serves many purposes at a gathering (you'll soon learn their immense value):
- Remove the 'hanger' from your guests and place everyone in a great mood from the start
- Curb their appetites until dinner is ready, this will buy you time in case your preparation did not go to plan.
- Keep people located in your event space - and prevent the party from dispersing
Step 1: The Board
Choose a board that suits your space (table size), decor and guest number (for larger amounts of guests it might work to create two boards and serve them in different locations). You can also use this to separate known allergens onto a different board such as nuts, or dietary preferences for your vegetarian and vegan guests.
Our Oliver Deluxe Board is a crowd favourite with its large diameter and beautiful teak wood grain. Personalised just for you, it is bound to impress your guests!
Step 2: Functional Items
Before we get into the food, you first need to think about how you will be serving everything. Dips, olives and soft cheeses like bocconcini require a little more thought that just placing them on the board. Keeping dips in their plastic containers is never a great look.
Place your small serving bowls on the board to see what space you have left. It is also a great idea to get out your serving spoons and cheese knives. Our Rosie teaspoons are perfect for dips and tapenades.
At this point, fill your serving bowls with dips and set aside for placement with the cheese when you're ready to assemble.
Step 3: Cheese
Cheeses get their own category because there are many ways you can attack them. We like to have a combination of soft and hard cheeses available to a) make the platter more visually appealing and b) meet a variety of cheese preferences.
A good cheese board will have at least 1 hard cheese, 1 soft cheese and 1 alternative cheese.
Hard Cheese options include:
- Cheddar
- Gouda
- Havarti
- Parmesan
- Manchego
Soft Cheese options include:
- Brie
- Camembert
- Bocconcini
- Burrata
- Feta
Alternative Cheese options include:
- Goat's cheese
- Cream cheese
- Fruit/Nut covered cheese
Think about the way you'll be serving your cheese for ease of grabbing. Hard cheeses work well pre-cut so that guests can simply grab and go. We've sectioned our vintage cheddar into two sections as it's often the go to cheese in the image below.
Step 4: Meats
To elevate your cheeseboard to a charcuterie board, you need to add a selection of meats.
The way you choose and display your meats will depend on a few factors:
- Keep meet items on a separate board or dish if you have vegetarian guests.
- The space on your board. Place directly on the board if possible, otherwise use a separate dish to avoid crowding and contact with your cheeses.
Our recommendations include traditional European cured meats such as:
- Prosciutto
- Salami
- Sopressa
- Ham
- Capocollo
A mix of spicy and mild is always a great idea!
Step 5: Crackers and Bread
If cheeses, meats and antipasti are the finishing touches, then crackers and bread are the foundation of a good cheese board. Almost everything on your board will require a nice carb to rest on, so high quality breads and crackers are important.
The options are very much dependent on your choices above, which is why we've put this section last. Crackers are appropriate for almost all cheeses and dips, and a variety of water crackers, lavosh and grissini will be sure winners.
If your meats above are quite large (think long pieces of prosciutto) it may be useful to include small pieces of bread such as a cut up baguette or torn loaf.
