Le Fromage Bleu

Zak left some blue cheese in my fridge last night and then fled to Cambridge. Now what? I am not a big fan of the smelly cheese but I cannot possibly throw it out - I will never hear the end of it - "How could you? Blue Cheese is my favourite!!!" Ok, everyone, settle down. The most obvious solution: look up a recipe that I can discreetly sneak the blue cheese into yet somehow still practice working on the pastry dough challenge.


So as I greedily stuffed myself with leftovers scavenged from the refrigerator (a slice of spinach & cheese quiche with a side of beef stew in red tomato sauce),

I began blogging and searching for the ultimate blue cheese recipe. Then I found this: Almond Blue Cheese Fritters. Blue cheese, check. Pastry dough, check. Almonds, check. It's going to be deep-fried and crispy, check and check. The cheese, although, isn't exactly discreet. Oh well, you can't have everything in life.


This is a no-roll pie crust recipe that I found from Joy the Baker's blog. It does not use shortening, just good ol' unsalted butter, vegetable oil and one tablespoon of light cream cheese. I also used olive oil instead of vegetable oil. It turned out super flaky and tasted quite buttery. The only down side is that this crust can't be rolled out so I could not use it for a top crust, only bottom. 

I added some extra ingredients to the chopped almonds and blue cheese: chopped cashews, haw flakes, ground cinnamon and a splash of heavy cream. Basically everything I could find in the house that might distract from the blue cheese.

Voila! The pastry dough turned out excellent but I just was not able to eat these fritters! The pungent taste of the blue cheese made me really nauseous. I only fried three and froze the rest. I'll definitely use the pastry again though!