With picnics and wine nights becoming ever-popular, it's essential to perfect your cheese board aesthetic.
Adele Ladewig, cheese board extraordinaire, gives us her top tips for creating an enviable cheese board that's perfect for a Gouda time.
Picking your selection
Choose a balance of flavours, strong flavours like salamis or cheeses need to be broken up with more subtle flavours such crackers, grapes or nuts. Have a range of sweet and salty, they will complement each other and have your guests going back for more.
Set up
For large parties, placing baking paper on a clean bench top gives an easy extension of space without buying a large cheese board. This ensures you have enough space to layout your selection without it being overcrowded.
Layout
The easiest way to arrange a grazing board is starting with the largest items first (cheeses, dip containers, baguettes, etc), then arranging around them. Place your large items in the space then begin clustering your smaller items to complement them.
Keep a few ‘garnishing’ items off to the side like strawberries, cherries or edible flowers. These will make a beautiful finishing touch and can be used to fill in any small gaps.
Something to be mindful of when laying out your items is food allergies and dietary restrictions. If a guest has an allergy, leave that item out of the board completely, the risk of cross contamination is too high.
For dietary restrictions, vegetarian for example, split the board to have meat products on one side and the vegetarian options on the other, giving your vegetarian guest options that have not been touched by the meat products.
Preparation
When preparing your items, think of aesthetics: slicing bread at an angle, rolling your prosciutto or star-cut your berries. Taking the extra time to do these small touches greatly adds to the visual appeal of your final platter.
Serving
Always try to have napkins and plates available to your guests, it allows them to take a few items at a time and gives the option to move around the room.
Main points:
Use a mixture of textures and flavours to create a diverse board.
If you don’t have a serving platter, use baking paper on a clean bench.
When laying out a board, place the large items first and work around them.
Take time to present items before placing it on the board.
