I followed the recipe in Ms. Karlin’s book, but looking back at my notes, there’s this: “Curd too soft, may not be enough crevices.”

If you remember, the mold in blue cheese needs to breathe for it to get really blue. This recipe didn’t call for any skewering, so I didn’t do that.

It got peau de crapaud (toadskin), and certainly didn’t look like a Stilton. Now at seven months old:

And cutting it in half, it certainly didn’t look like a Stilton:

But, you ask, how did it taste?

Surprisingly, this was very good. If I had been served it, and didn’t know what it was, I would have said to myself, “Hmm, this is a very nice Cheddar, but also a blue, weird.”

One thing I’ve learned is that the “blue” in blue cheeses is just the spores of the mold, and they are less responsible for the taste than the mycelium, which is what breaks down the fats and proteins and makes the cheese taste “blue.” And that depends on the aging, so you can have an aged cheese that doesn’t look, but tastes very blue.

(I made the sourdough crackers, so they are a bit raggedy!)

So, not a Stilton, but delicious. . . which just proves that you can screw up completely and still get yummy cheese!

-R