Baron Bigod

Baron Bigod Brie is a rich and creamy, white bloomy-rind cheese handmade on Fen Farm, Bungay in Suffolk by Jonny and Dulcie Crickmore and their team.  It is made from their own Montbeliarde cows milk. It has a smooth silky texture and a golden curd, with long lasting warm earth, farmyard and mushroom flavours.

It is the only traditional raw milk Brie-de-Meaux style cheese produced in the UK. In fact, even the French would be jealous, as the cheese is one of only a handful of its type in the world to be made by the farmer, on the farm, and can genuinely be called a true farmhouse Brie. 

Using a traditional recipe passed on to Jonny and his team by a French cheese maker. The cheese is hand made in small batches, very early in the morning so that the milk is still warm, straight from the cow when it is at the perfect temperature for cheesemaking. 

The mould cultures are added to the warm morning’s milk and is gently gravity fed into small vats. The vats are in the cheese room which are just a few metres from the milking parlour.  The rennet is added. The curds form and are carefully hand-ladled into large moulds using traditional pelle-a-brie ladles. The young cheeses are hand salted and then aged for up to 8 weeks in a cave-like environment.

Milk is a very fragile substance and can easily be damaged by splashing, pumping and haulage. Damaged milk makes poor quality cheese, which is why Jonny treats his milk with the utmost care and respect, keeping its delicate cells and fat molecules intact. That is why the milk is gravity fed from the milking parlour to the cheese room.

The cheese can only be described as utterly delicious with a rich and earthy taste. It has long lasting flavours which linger on the tongue and will develop further to deliver a complex yet delicate climax.