Day 2: A Blue Cheese Brunch

My friend the Triple Crème Queen offered to throw a party. She knew I was devoting the month of March to blue cheese, so she offered to host a brunch. No one timid was invited.

She made a beautiful blue cheesecake.

It looked like a moonscape. Picture a smooth surface with tiny blue craters. I wanted to put a flag in it, claim it as unchartered territory, but turns out recipes for blue cheesecake abound on the Internet. Come out, come out, blue-cheesecake lovers, wherever you are.

Triple Crème baked up a recipe from her favorite chefs, Eric Patterson and Jennifer Blakeslee, at Cook's House in Traverse City, Michigan. The recipe called for two pounds of cream cheese and 8 ounces of creamy blue (she used Saint Agur). Alongside: vanilla pear compote.

Sublime.

I think this cake is the perfect vehicle for conversion. By that I mean: conversion experience. Say you are a Blue Cheese Skeptic, or say you live among the Uncertain. I meet them all the time – people at the cheese counter who won’t let anything blue pass their lips, although they think nothing of eating a hotdog. Okay. Hmm.

The texture of this cake is dense and crumble-moist.

As you eat it, you taste a winged sweetness, so faint. Then Saint Agur flutterkicks – a bold but gentle move. The pairing of blue cheese with pears is classic, so the compote fits like a habit on this nun.

I had to take a picture – really, I was moved to – after I ate the first bite. Just so I could relive the experience on lonely lettuce nights.

If you can’t find Saint Agur, try a creamy blue like Maytag, Cashel, or Black Castello.

Blue Cheese Cheesecake with Pear Compote

from The Cook's House

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons flour

5 eggs

2 pounds cream cheese, room temperature

8 ounces blue cheese, broken into small pieces

6 firm, ripe pears

2 cups Riesling wine

½ cup sugar

1 vanilla bean, cut in half lengthwise

zest of ½ orange

juice of ½ lemon

For the cake:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a 9-inch springform pan.

Put 1 cup sugar, flour, eggs, and cream cheese in a bowl. Combine using an electric mixer, mixing until smooth. Carefully fold in blue cheese. Don’t over-mix or you’ll end up with a grey cake. Pour into springform pan. Bake 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours before unmolding.

For the pear compote:

Cube the pears – no need to peel them. Combine the wine and ½ cup sugar in a 4-qyart pot. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add vanilla bean, pears, and orange zest. Coook for 5 minutes – the pears will get tender and the sauce will thicken – then pour into a bowl. Add the lemon juice, mix well and cool.

Serve compote alongside slices of cheesecake, along with glasses of Ice Wine, Champagne, or Sauternes.

*

For dessert: Triple Creme served the most sensuous brownies, dotted with sea salt and pistachios. She is a Charlie's Angel, this girl. You must meet her. Her brownie recipe is over at her blog, Aesthetically. Be sure to dilly-dally.

Blue Cheese Baked Pears

The highlight of our last tasting at Quince: these luscious Anjou pears stuffed with blue cheese, cranberries, and walnuts -- basted with cider-port sauce. We even managed to convert a tentative cheese eater with a new French boyfriend (she attended the tasting on the sly, while he was out of town).

Because blue cheese makes some people nervous, we selected a mild temptress, Bleu d'Auvergne. However, you could ramp up the blue flavor by using Stilton in this recipe. Serve these pears on a bed of greens at Thanksgiving -- that's my plan. They are a little bit salad, a little bit dessert, with a nod to the world of stuffing. Perfect.

Blue Cheese Baked Pears

            Adapted from a recipe by Ina Garten

            3 ripe Anjou pears

            ¼ cup fresh lemon juice

            3 oz. crumbled blue cheese

            ¼ c. dried cranberries

            ¼ c. walnut halves, toasted, chopped

            ½ cup apple cider

            3 Tablespoons port

            1/3 cup light brown sugar

            ¼ cup olive oil

            6 oz. baby arugula or spinach

            salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Toss toasted walnuts, cranberries, and blue cheese in a bowl. Peel pears and slice in half, removing the core. In a new bowl, combine cider, port, and brown sugar. Arrange pear halves in a pie pan so that they fit snugly, and top each half with cheese-nut mixture. Then drizzle with cider mixture.

Bake for 30 minutes, basting occasionally. Remove and let pears cool. Combine any remaining basting liquid from the pan with olive oil and lemon juice to make a dressing. Dress the greens, and set out six plates. Arrange baked pear halves on top of dressed greens, adding a pinch of salt if desired,

           

Future Tastings with Madame Fromage:

November 20, Thanksgiving Cheese Plate with Marisa McClellan (foodinars.com)

December 18, Holiday Cheese Pairings

January 22, Fondu

Please reserve in advance by calling Quince in Philadelphia at 215.232.3425.