Christmas Cheese Ball Recipe with Orange and Cranberry Recipe - The Cookie Rookie® (2024)

FAQs

Why is my cheese ball runny? ›

Your cheese ball may become runny or wet if you add too many mix-ins. Keep it simple with dried herbs, and make sure to pat dry any fresh herbs before mixing them in.

What to Serve With Cheese Balls. I like serving my cheese balls with buttery crackers like Ritz, but you can use any cracker. Vegetables like celery sticks or thick radish slices would work well too.

Cheese balls freeze quite well. Again, it's best to wrap the cheese ball in one layer of plastic wrap, then one layer of aluminum foil. Freeze for up to four weeks. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight.

Your cheese ball is too runny: Once you have added all the extras, and it's all mixed in well, if the texture is more salad dressing-like than something you might spread on a bagel, you can tighten it up easily by adding unsalted butter, one tablespoon at a time, mixing before you add more.

Cover the cheeseball in cling wrap and refrigerate for about 1 hour to allow it to firm up. Take it out of the refrigerator about 20 minutes before serving to allow it to soften just slightly.

Storing in Fridge: If you start with fresh ingredients, you can store the cheese ball in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Cover any leftovers with plastic wrap and store in an airtight container. How to Freeze: I prefer a freshly made cheese ball, BUT you can freeze cheese balls.

In general, hand-crafted cheeses with delicate flavors and aromas don't freeze well and are best bought in smaller portions and eaten fresh. Freezing is also not recommended for fresh curd cheeses like cottage cheese, ricotta, and quark due to their high moisture content.

Building a better cracker and cheese tray

Aged parmesan, sharp white cheddar, gouda, manchego, muenster, burrata, gorganzola, and feta are some of our favorites. You might also include a cheese dip made from melted asadero cheese, for example. Crackers and bread. Again, variety is the key.

Cheese balls are traditionally made with two kinds of cheese – cream cheese (or another soft cheese like quark cheese, mascarpone or ricotta) and a grated semi-soft or semi-firm cheese like cheddar, colby cheese, monterey jack cheese, or muenster.

From there, they are baked in an oven to remove any excess moisture. The tasty cheese flavor is a seasoning that starts with vegetable oil and an all-natural cheddar cheese powder, which are mixed together and sprayed over the cheese balls in a tumbling seasoning barrel until they are completely coated.

How do you cut cheese nicely? ›

For slices, lay the cheese with its largest surface down and slice into small rectangles. From there you can cut the slices in half to create a club cracker sized slice and in half again for the perfect square slice of cheese.

Not giving the cheese ball time to chill in the fridge.

Follow this tip: After forming the cheese ball, plan to chill it in the fridge for at least several hours (up to six days). This will give it plenty of time to firm up so it's guaranteed to hold its shape.

No need to worry – the liquid on the outside of your cheese is just excess moisture, or liquid whey. Wipe off your cheese with a napkin or paper towel and enjoy! It's common for naturally-aged cheeses to develop a small amount of moisture inside their packaging.

Our aged cheddar is different than the usual blocks of cheese at your local grocery store. Obviously, it's whey more delicious, but you might find a few aesthetic differences that are a totally natural byproduct of the significant aging process. The liquid is just a bit of extra moisture or liquid whey.

The basic building blocks of cheese are milk protein (casein), water, fat, and salt. When heated, the protein molecules break apart from that structure, freeing the other parts to become fluid.