Cutting soft cheeses


Cutting soft cheeses
As you may have already noticed, when you have to use a "soft" cheese in a recipe - their exact name is "soft cheese" - such as Camembert, Munster or Mont d'or, it's not easy to make anything other than thick slices.
6,853 5/5 (2 reviews)
Grade this page:
Keywords for this post:CheeseStuffCutCrustDecrustSoftColdSoft paste
Last modified on: February 20th 2024
For this post: Comment Follow Send to a friend
Cutting soft cheeses
Well, yes, you can, with small cubes for example, but unfortunately you run the risk of obtaining a kind of cheese purée...
It's quite normal though, with this kind of cheese, unlike Comté for example, the center is very tender, and so is the rind, which is usually eaten (yes, it's a question of taste too).

camembert coulant


So with these "soft" cheeses, it's impossible to cut them properly?
Well, normally not, but there's a very simple trick.

The trick is to put the cheese in the freezer for 1 or 2 hours, depending on its size. Say 1 hour for a cheese like camembert or saint-marcellin, and more like 2 hours for a cheese like mont d'or.

At the end of this time, the cheese has hardened, but is not frozen, so it can be cut much more easily.

This is particularly effective if you need to decrust (remove the rind from a cheese), which is normally almost impossible, but after this passage in the cold becomes perfectly feasible.

découpe camembert


Be careful not to freeze the cheese completely, as this time it would be almost impossible to cut as it would be too hard.
The best thing to do is put it in the freezer for 1 hour to start with, then come and feel around to see if it has firmed up sufficiently. If not, go back for another 30 minutes or 1 hour, and so on until you reach the right texture.

Once you've finished cutting the cheese, you'll need to let it come back to temperature, unless you're going to cook it afterwards, in which case there's no need.

To sum up: to be able to cut a soft cheese, nothing beats a little time in the freezer to firm it up.

Lasts posts
Thinning out herbs
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...
August 8th 20259325
Add a bay leaf
Add a bay leaf
Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...
July 31th 20251,1995
Parsley stems
Parsley stems
Parsley, whether curly or flat, is a delicious ingredient in many recipes, where it is used both raw and cooked. When used raw, in a salad for example, where it always provides, alone or with other herbs, a remarkable freshness, only the leaves are kept. And when used cooked?
July 28th 20251,275 13
A drizzle of olive oil
A drizzle of olive oil
Often in a recipe, you have to "baste" vegetables, for example, before sending them to the oven. What the author means by this is that you need to put oil on top of the vegetables to cook them in the oven. Typically, we just quickly drizzle oil over the vegetables, hoping not to miss any, but...
July 13th 20251,4665
Always secure your cutting board
Always secure your cutting board
When using a cutting board, it's very important that it's stable and doesn't move while you're cutting, for safety's sake. Boards have a natural tendency to slide on the work surface, but here are 2 ways to block them effectively.
July 1st 20251,5485

Other pages you may also like
Thinning out herbs
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...
August 8th 20259325
Double cooking of vegetables
Double cooking of vegetables
When you cook vegetables, it's not easy to capture and preserve the flavours. It is easy to undercook, but you can make up for it, or overcook, and then it is unfortunately a bit cooked (in the sense of "ruined"). But above all, how to get the maximum of the taste of the vegetable in the pan, then...
July 12th 201922 K4.1
Clean your mixer easily
Clean your mixer easily
If you use a "bowl" or "blender" mixer, as opposed to a plunger, you've probably noticed that it's a bit of a hassle to clean it after use. And yet, with a simple trick, it can be done very quickly. See how here.
June 26th 20245,6385
5 really useful cooking tips
5 really useful cooking tips
Cooking is about recipes, of course, but it is also an impressive collection of small gestures, ways of doing things, knowing what to do and what not to do. All these little tips and tricks can be very important: they can affect the way a recipe turns out, simply because you did just the right...
March 29th 201622 K4.9
What can I use for blind baking a pastry case?
What can I use for blind baking a pastry case?
When it comes to home-made desserts, tarts are always popular. They can be divided into two basic types: those cooked with their filling, such as an apricot and almond cream tart, and those where the filling is added after baking the pastry case, such as a strawberry tart or chocolate tart. For...
May 2nd 2017109 K4.5
Post a comment or question
Posted by:
I am not a leaving thing

Follow this page
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
I am not a leaving thing
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.

Back to top of page