Bread cheese facts for kids
Bread cheese (called leipäjuusto or juustoleipä in Finnish, and kaffeost in Swedish) is a special fresh cheese from Finland. In the United States, it's often known as Finnish squeaky cheese because of the fun sound it makes when you bite into it!
This cheese is traditionally made from beestings, which is the very first milk from a cow that has just had a calf. This milk is extra rich. Sometimes, people also use reindeer or even goat milk to make it. However, most bread cheese you find in stores today is made from regular cow's milk. This means it might not have the same deep color or strong flavor as the traditional kind.
Bread cheese first came from areas in Finland like Southern Ostrobothnia, Northern Finland, and Kainuu.
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Finnish Names for Bread Cheese
Historically, people in Ostrobothnia and Lapland called this cheese leipäjuusto. In Kainuu, they used the name juustoleipä. Today, both names are used, but leipäjuusto is more common.
There are also other local names for it, like narskujuusto. This name comes from the sound the fresh cheese makes. When you chew it, it "squeaks" against your teeth!
How Bread Cheese is Made
To make bread cheese, milk is first turned into curds. These curds are then shaped into a round, flat disk, usually about two to three centimeters thick.
After shaping, the cheese is baked, grilled, or even flamed with fire. This gives it its unique brown or slightly burnt marks, which are part of its special look and taste.
In the past, bread cheese was often dried. This helped it last for many years, almost like a rock! To eat it, people would heat the hard, dry cheese over a fire. This made it soft again and gave it a delicious smell. Even today, some people dry their cheese for a few days in a well-aired spot. Bread cheese has a mild and pleasant flavor.
Ways to Enjoy Bread Cheese
You can eat bread cheese either warm or cold. Here are some popular ways to enjoy it:
- The classic way is to serve it in slices, often alongside a cup of coffee.
- Some people put a few pieces of bread cheese into a cup and pour hot coffee over them. This is why the Swedish name for it is kaffeost, meaning "coffee cheese."
- It's often served in diamond-shaped pieces (about 5 to 7 cm long) with cloudberry jam or fresh cloudberries. Cloudberries are a type of berry found in northern regions.
- Another tasty way is to cut slices of the cheese, pour a little cream over them so they soak it up, sprinkle some cinnamon and sugar, and then grill it in the oven for a short time. This is also often served with cloudberry jam.
- In modern Finnish cooking, diced bread cheese is sometimes used in salads. It's a mild choice that can replace cheeses like feta.
- For a dessert, bread cheese can be fried in a pan with butter until it gets soft. Then, it's served with jam, usually cloudberry jam, similar to how you might serve Camembert cheese.
See also
- Cheese curds (a type of squeaky cheese from North America)
- Fried cheese
- Halloumi
- List of cheeses
- Saganaki
