Each month, your Neighboring Food Co-ops feature our region’s artisan cheesemakers by offering a specially selected cheese at great price. Look for the “Cave to Co-op” sign in the cheese section at your local food co-op. To find one near you, visit www.nfca.coop/members.
This month’s special cheese is Bleu de Champlain from Champlain Valley Creamery, Middlebury, VT
With a graduate degree in Food Science and a background in wine making, Carleton Yoder moved to Vermont in the late 1990s to make hard apple cider. He took a year’s detour making farmstead Vermont cheddar at Shelburne Farms, and then decided to venture into cheesemaking on his own.
After a number of years in an old mill in Vergennes, where he carried countless full milk cans up countless flights of stairs, he finds himself in Middlebury making cheese. He still uses his traditional recipe but now with the aid of technology to move the milk cans around the creamery.
Champlain Valley‘s Bleu de Champlain is crafted from the raw whole milk of Severy Farm, in neighboring Cornwall, VT and Charleton hand ladles the delicate curds into each mold. After draining they’re wrapped and sent to cheese counters and cases around New England and aged 75- 90 days before release for sale. During this time the cheese is pierced twice to enhance blue mold growth, while a natural rind develops on the surface. The rich Jersey milk makes for a creamy, spicy finished cheese!
Bleu de Champlain Scones
- 4 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 1⁄2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for surface
- 1⁄2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled, cut into pieces, plus more, room temperature, for serving
- 4 ounces Bleu de Champlain, crumbled
- 1⁄3 cup chopped pecans
- 1 1⁄2 cups chilled heavy cream, plus more for brushing
- Freshly ground black pepper
Preheat oven to 425°. Whisk baking powder, sugar, salt, and 3 cups flour in a large bowl. Add 1⁄2 cup chilled butter and toss to coat. Using your fingers, work butter into flour until pieces are pea-size with a few larger pieces remaining. Add Bleu de Chamlain and pecans and toss to coat. Drizzle in 11⁄2 cups cream and mix with a wooden spoon until dough just begins to come together with a few bits of dry flour remaining.
Transfer dough and any loose flour to a lightly floured work surface and briefly knead to bring everything together. Flatten dough to 3⁄4″ thick (the shape doesn’t matter). Using a bench scraper to help lift the dough, fold in half and rotate 90°. Flatten it again to 3⁄4″ thick, fold in half, and rotate again. Repeat this process 2 more times for a total of 4 folds, lightly dusting surface with more flour as needed; this will create lots of flaky layers when the scones are baked.
Flatten dough to a 3⁄4″-thick rectangle, about 9×6″, and halve lengthwise. Cut into thirds crosswise to form six 3″ squares; halve each on a diagonal (you should have 12 triangles). Transfer scones to a parchment-lined baking sheet and freeze 10 minutes.
Brush scones with cream and sprinkle with pepper. Bake, rotating baking sheet halfway through, until tops are golden brown and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 16–18 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool. Serve with jam and room- temperature butter.
Cave to Co-op is a partnership between Provision International and the Neighboring Food Co-op Association (NFCA) to support local, artisanal cheese producers in our region and make their products more easily available to co-op shoppers. The NFCA is a network of more than 40 food co-ops in our region — including yours — that are working together to advance their vision of a thriving regional economy, rooted in a healthy, just and sustainable food system and a vibrant community of co-operative enterprise. For more information, please visit www.nfca.coop.