The Cheese Wine Bottle
My boyfriend does not like cake much, but he really likes cheese! It was his 30th birthday recently so I decided to make him a "cheesecake" but not the tiered cake variety, which are a little too weddingy for me. He also loves wine, so the answer was simple; a wine bottle sculpted from rounds of cheese and a personalised, vintage birthday, label.
I bought 15 varieties of cheese, mainly flat pieces, but a few wedges too - the only specification was they they had to be more than 7cm wide, the size of the cutter. I used a 7cm diameter smooth circular pastry cutter to cut the rounds. The rounds were stacked on top of each other until they were the height of a wine bottle and the top round was carved into shape with a sharp knife. The neck of the wine bottle was made with layers cut with a 2cm diameter cutter. Once all the pieces were stacked up and we were happy with them we pushed a bamboo skewer gently down the length of the bottle to stablise it. It's not perfect but we liked the character of our wonky wine bottle :) not bad for a first attempt!
The label was designed with a picture of my boyfriend as a baby, with his age and date of birth used as the volume (104cl) and percentage (30%). This was pinned in place onto the bottle. A couple of spare cheeses and some grapes completed the cake.
I bought 15 varieties of cheese, mainly flat pieces, but a few wedges too - the only specification was they they had to be more than 7cm wide, the size of the cutter. I used a 7cm diameter smooth circular pastry cutter to cut the rounds. The rounds were stacked on top of each other until they were the height of a wine bottle and the top round was carved into shape with a sharp knife. The neck of the wine bottle was made with layers cut with a 2cm diameter cutter. Once all the pieces were stacked up and we were happy with them we pushed a bamboo skewer gently down the length of the bottle to stablise it. It's not perfect but we liked the character of our wonky wine bottle :) not bad for a first attempt!
The label was designed with a picture of my boyfriend as a baby, with his age and date of birth used as the volume (104cl) and percentage (30%). This was pinned in place onto the bottle. A couple of spare cheeses and some grapes completed the cake.