A festive and crowd-pleasing appetizer for Rosh Hashanah or your Yom Kippur breakfast: an apples and honey themed cheese board! And in keeping with the Jewish tradition of not mixing meat and dairy, this cheese board is completely vegetarian. Thanks to Cabot Creamery Co-operative for sponsoring this High Holiday recipe.
Rosh Hashanah begins on the night of September 6 this year, and yes, that is early. Most of us think of Rosh Hashanah as a fall holiday and plan our holiday menus accordingly. Chicken soup – perhaps studded with kreplach – melt-in-your-mouth brisket and carrot tzimmes – all traditional Rosh Hashanah dishes and all suitable for a brisk fall night.
I don’t know about you, but I am anticipating a very warm, summery Rosh Hashanah this year. September 6 in Chicago, or New York, or Miami, or Detroit, or Los Angeles is likely to be hot. Possibly very hot. I think I might rather have gazpacho than steaming chicken soup wth kreplach on September 6.
So I am adjusting my menu to reflect the early arrival of the holiday this year and the fact that it may well feel much more like summer than fall when we ring in the Jewish New Year. Perhaps a Couscous with Seven Vegetables would be a more seasonal main course than brisket?
But one dish we must have on Rosh Hashanah – regardless of the date – is apples and honey, which we eat to symbolize beginning the new year with sweetness. (The round challah is also non-negotiable, by the way.) As I was thinking about my Rosh Hashanah menu and how we always begin the meal with apples and honey, it occurred to me that some sharp Cabot Creamery cheddar would pair beautifully with the apples and honey. Cheddar + apple is one of my all-time favorite food combinations and a go-to afternoon snack for me during the fall months.
So, I decided to create an apples and honey-themed cheese board as a festive, meaningful, and above all, room temperature way to begin your Rosh Hashanah meal. The apples and honeycomb were my jumping off point for this holiday cheese board. From there, I selected other seasonal fruits – some of which, like figs, have great symbolism for the Jewish people – dried fruit and nuts. And of course, the all-important cheeses.
I favor a sharp cheddar, especially when paired with apple. For this board, I began with Cabot’s Farmhouse Reserve Cheddar from the Legacy Collection because it is both sharp and mellow at the same time and has a slightly crumbly texture. I love to have at least one crumbly cheese on a cheese board! If you are not able to source this particular cheddar, the New York Extra Sharp Cheddar would be a good substitute.
Not only does Cabot Creamery make the best-tasting cheddar in the world, it is a company with a heart. A certified B Corporation, Cabot Creamery is a co-operative owned by farm families throughout New England & New York. That means that all of the profits go back to the farmers themselves. And all Cabot cheddars are naturally aged and lactose-free. Thank goodness for that because every Jewish family I know has at least one member who is sensitive to lactose! (In my house, it’s my daughter.)
For the second cheese, I went in a different direction and selected Cabot’s Pepper Jack because it has a creamy texture and naturally, a little bit of heat from the peppers. With all the sweet fruits and honey on this board, I thought we needed a cheese with a hint of spiciness as a contrast. (Happily, the Pepper Jack, like Cabot’s cheddar, is also lactose-free.) Lastly, I added a domestic bleu cheese to round out the board.
As I mentioned in the beginning, one item I did not include in my apples and honey cheese board is any meat or charcuterie. Most charcuterie, like ham or salami, is made from pork and many Jewish families do not eat or serve pork, even if they don’t keep kosher, out of tradition. Also, mixing meat and dairy is against the kosher laws. While again, many American Jews – including my family – do not keep kosher to this extent, I liked the idea of keeping this cheese board vegetarian.
Not only do you want your holiday cheese board to offer a lot of variety and be well-balanced, you also want it to look festive and eye-catching. Fortunately, there is so much inspiration out there to give you ideas. Have you seen all the beautiful cheese boards on Cabot’s website? Stunning!
Here are a few tips to help you arrange your epic holiday cheese board. First, start with a few larger anchor elements. So, I put down the cheese first: the crumbled cheddar, the sliced pepper jack (cut into triangles and arranged in an alternating pattern) and the bleu cheese, which I left whole. The honeycomb was another anchor. Around those elements I arranged the sliced apples, the figs, the crackers and a few small pinch bowls filled with nuts. Into the remaining empty spaces, it was easy to place the dried fruits, the blackberries and the grapes.
I couldn’t believe how beautiful our finished cheese board looked and it was a pretty spectacular lunch for me, my husband and my daughter on the day I made it. Now that I have mastered this apples and honey cheese board, I am definitely going to recreate it for our Rosh Hashanah dinner with friends, and do not be at all surprised if I make another for the Yom Kippur breakfast! I know that many people do a dairy meal to break the fast on Yom Kippur, so this cheese board would be a wonderful thing to serve for that occasion as well.
Ingredients
- 8 oz. Cabot Farmhouse Reserve Cheddar
- 8 oz. Cabot Pepper Jack
- 1 wedge bleu cheese
- 1 honeycomb
- 2 apples, one red and one green
- Juice of one lemon
- 1/2 cup Marcona almonds
- 1/2 cup candied pecans
- Several varieties crackers
- 1 pint blackberries
- 1 pint figs
- 1 bunch grapes
- 1 cup dried apricots
- 1 cup dried cranberries
Instructions
- Select a large wooden board or platter for the cheese board.
- Crumble the cheddar cheese and slice the Pepper Jack into even slices. Cut each slice in half diagonally to create triangles.
- Place the bleu cheese in one corner of the board and the honeycomb in the opposite corner at the other end. Arrange the Pepper Jack triangles in a line, alternating sides as shown, going across the board. Place the crumbled cheddar next to the honeycomb.
- Core and slice the apples and spritz them with lemon juice to prevent browning. Arrange the apple slices on the board in a few areas.
- Place the nuts in two small pinch bowls and arrange those on the board. Finally, fill in empty spaces with crackers, blackberries, figs (sliced in half), grapes and dried fruits until the entire board is covered.
- Cover and refrigerate the board until needed, removing it from the refrigerator a half-hour before serving to allow the cheese to return to room temperature.
Full disclosure time: Cabot Creamery Co-operative sponsored this post and I received compensation for my work. All opinions expressed herein are entirely my own.
