Why Chocolate and Sweets Belong With Cheese
Sweet and salty have always belonged together, and a cheese board is one of the older places they meet. For centuries that sweetness came from honey and fruit, most classically a quince paste with Manchego. Chocolate is a newer arrival, and a good one when you keep it dark. At 70 percent and up it carries the same deep, almost caramel note that aged cheese does, so the two meet in the middle, while the bitterness keeps a rich cheese from tasting flat. It asks a little more thought than honey or fruit, which is why it pays to know what goes with what.
Cookies are the simpler half of the equation. A buttery French butter cookie or a round of shortbread behaves like a cracker, a mild, lightly sweet base that flatters almost any cheese and asks nothing back. Chocolate is where it gets interesting and a little riskier, so the rest comes down to which cheese wants which chocolate, and how you set the two out.
Pairing Chocolate With Cheese
Match the chocolate to the strength of the cheese. Dark chocolate in the 70 percent range stands up to the strong ones: a blue like Roquefort or Stilton, a sharp aged cheddar, an aged gouda, or a shard of Parmigiano. They share that nutty, caramel depth, and they carry the salt to cut the sweetness. Milk chocolate is softer and sweeter, so it wants a milder cheese in return, a young gouda or a mild cheddar, nothing that will bury it. White chocolate is sweeter still and tastes mostly of cream, which makes it a friend to fresh and tangy cheeses like a young goat cheese or a wedge of brie. The chocolate-dipped figs almost pair themselves, since figs and Manchego is already a classic and the dark coating only adds an edge a sheep's-milk cheese can take.
Temperature does more than anything else. Cold mutes both chocolate and cheese, so let them sit out for half an hour before serving and each one opens up. Keep the portions small, a square of chocolate and a thin slice of cheese, and taste the cheese first so the chocolate does not flatten it. Play the textures off each other, a snap of dark chocolate against a creamy cheese, or smooth chocolate against something crumbly and aged. If there is a glass in hand, a tawny port or a sweet Pedro Ximenez sherry pulls the sweet and the savory together. Keep a light hand all the same, since a board is mostly cheese, with the sweets in a supporting role.
The Cookies and Chocolate
The French butter cookies are the ones to reach for first. Pierre Biscuiterie has baked them in the Normandy countryside since the 1800s, thin rounds of butter and fresh cream that go a little sandy as you bite and taste plainly of good butter. Some are folded with sea salt and caramel or with strawberry and raspberry, and others are dipped on one side in milk chocolate, thick enough to snap while the cookie stays crisp underneath. Markys almond macarons sit nearby for something lighter and chewier, and the French sweets collection carries more French cookies and macarons besides.
The chocolate runs from bars to fruit. Amedei, a small maker in Pontedera, Tuscany, presses a 70 percent dark bar studded with dried strawberries, raspberries, and cherries, bitter and bright at the same time. Mitica takes soft Pajarero figs from Spain and hand-dips them in dark chocolate, somewhere between candy and dried fruit, with jammy fig under a thin bittersweet shell. A few more European bars round out the shelf for when you want chocolate on its own. Whatever you pick, it earns its place next to a wedge or two from the gourmet cheese collection.
Also Worth Exploring
For the rest of a board, the jams and spreads collection has the honey and fruit preserves that pair with cheese more readily than chocolate does. The crackers and crisps collection covers the savory base. Both earn a spot on a board sooner than the sweets do.
Cookies, Chocolate & Cheese: Frequently Asked Questions
French butter cookies, called sablés or palets depending on the shape, are short, crisp biscuits made mostly of butter, sugar, and flour, often with a little cream. They are dense and faintly sandy, and they taste plainly of good butter rather than of vanilla or spice. The ones here come from Pierre Biscuiterie in Normandy, which has baked them since the 1800s. Some are plain, some are folded with sea salt and caramel or berries, and some are dipped on one side in milk chocolate. All are baked in France.
Dark, for the most part. A dark chocolate around 70 percent has the bitterness and depth to stand next to a strong cheese, a blue, an aged cheddar, or an aged gouda, where both share a nutty, almost caramel note. Milk chocolate is sweeter and thinner in flavor, so it works best with a mild cheese like a young gouda or a soft cheddar, and otherwise eats better on its own. As a rule, the stronger the cheese, the darker the chocolate it can take.